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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212873">the mess we leave to follow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranxrys/pseuds/kiranxrys'>kiranxrys</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussions of Suicide, First Kiss, Introspection, M/M, Prompt: Injury/Recovery, Revelations, Terminal Illnesses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:55:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,055</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212873</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranxrys/pseuds/kiranxrys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian Bashir is dying. It's his own fault, really. The worst part of the whole affair is that there are so many things he's still yet to understand - his life, the universe, but particularly one mysterious Cardassian tailor.</p>
<p>He only wishes he'd had a little bit more time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julian Bashir &amp; Leeta, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020 event.</p>
<p>As the fic tags note, this story does contain discussions of suicide. Please avoid reading this fic if this might trigger you - there are no descriptions of violence or self-harm or anything like that in this fic, but the focus on suicide is quite strong for a scene.</p>
<p>Fic title from Smother by Daughter, a beautiful song that really inspired the story. This fic takes place after Let He Who Is Without Sin in early S5.</p>
<p>CW: terminal illness, discussions and thoughts of suicide, mild blood/gore related imagery. It's not quite as dark as it sounds, but the warnings are necessary.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m going to die.” It’s not much more than a whisper in the silence of the Infirmary, murmured beneath Julian’s breath to the ghosts who haunt sickbay, the ones he couldn’t save. The ones it seems he’ll be joining, soon enough. He stares at the screen, at the test results that glow in clear-cut orange text on the black display. His own blank expression stares back in the reflection of the glass.</p>
<p>This can’t be happening. <em>Shouldn’t </em>be happening. He was barely hit by the blast on the <em>Defiant. </em>Forcing down a rising wave of panic, he rereads the same cell counts over and over again, hoping he might’ve been wrong somehow. His hands shake uncontrollably. <em>Idiot. So stupid. Could’ve stopped it. What were you thinking?</em></p>
<p>He knows what he was thinking. He was thinking about the ensign bleeding out from where a console exploded into them on the bridge, about Kira’s bad concussion and the risk to the baby, about the casualty reports from the lower decks down in engineering. He remembers words from months and months ago now – <em>you’re a man who dreams of being a hero. </em>He forgot the first rule of first aid, the one they teach to teenagers who do emergency resuscitation courses in high school for extra credit. Always assess for dangers to yourself before rushing in to be heroic. A phantom pain begins to throb in his shoulder where the wound was, a memory from the day before. He’d known he felt off, even when it was healed. He should’ve checked, should’ve done something.</p>
<p><em>It’s too late. You’re going to die, Julian Bashir. </em>There’s something ridiculously comical about it, somehow. Like it’s all a big practical joke from the universe. It <em>is</em> a ludicrous way for a doctor to die. If it wasn’t so horrific to suddenly see the end of the road in sight, cut off by the brutal degeneration of his condition, it would be quite funny. He doesn’t need genetic enhancement to calculate how long he has left, based on those levels of deterioration. Maybe two weeks, at the very most. He’d be surprised if he could still walk after one. The rate of cellular decay is so extreme, worse than he would’ve imagined possible for such a small, <em>stupid </em>injury. Two weeks. Three hundred and thirty-six hours. It seems like a long time, put like that. He sits back in his chair with a throaty laugh, burying his face in his hands.</p>
<p>Julian Bashir, soon to be dead after all. After every near miss, every nasty scrape, and this is how it ends. He didn’t even get a dramatic accident or a moment of heroism. Just him, being thoughtless and arrogant, like always. Thinking he would be <em>just fine</em> continuing on without a care. His mother had been right all those years ago, in her own way. <em>You’re not a robot, Jules. You’re not indestructible. Stop doing things to hurt yourself. </em>Maybe he should’ve listened. She meant it differently – it’d been an excuse, an attempt to rid herself of a guilty conscience, as much as it’d been a warning. But there was still truth to it.</p>
<p>He never thought he was indestructible. He just thought that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care. Obviously, he was wrong. The strong impression that he’s about to vomit or faint or keel over and die right now from reactionary terror seems to confirm that. He tries to take in a shuddering breath, counting the seconds. It’s not that bad, really. At least he has time to say goodbye.</p>
<p>“Doctor Bashir.” He jumps, not daring to turn around in case Nurse Anye sees his face and can read the truth in it. “Doctor, we’ve had a call from the Novaceks. Nikolas has the flu, they think. I’m just going to take some medicine down to them, I’ll be out for a minute.”</p>
<p>Julian glances at the time. “That’d be great, thank you,” he replies, struggling to keep this voice steady. It sounds hollow and oddly distant, like someone else is speaking for him. “You don’t need to come back afterwards, this shift is nearly over.” He realises the results of his cellular examination are still showing on the screen and hopes she’s too far away to see.</p>
<p>“Sir, are you okay?” she asks worriedly. “You don’t sound well.”</p>
<p>He coughs and dares to throw a small glance over his shoulder in her direction. His attempt at a smile comes across as more of an agonised grimace. “I’m just uh- still recovering from yesterday,” he replies. “You know how it is.”</p>
<p>Anye looks doubtful. “Maybe you should take a few days off,” she suggests.</p>
<p>Julian’s laugh comes out less casual than he hoped for, strained as he tries to subtly switch the display away from his test results. He still feels like he’s fighting to get enough air. “I wish I had the time.” That’s ironic. He <em>does</em> wish he had the time. There are too many loose ends. Even if he skipped work until the last day he was still standing, it wouldn’t be enough. Too many people, too many threads not fully woven into the wider picture. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Anye. Thanks for all the help.”</p>
<p>She offers him a friendly smile. “Only doing my job, sir.” <em>She has no idea. </em>Funny, that she can’t feel any of the sickening weight in the room, the mountain of fear crushing <em>him</em>. The door closes behind her with a soft <em>whoosh </em>and he slumps down onto the desk, covering his mouth with his sleeve in case something loud and embarrassing breaks out of him. The last thing he needs is someone hearing and finding out about this.</p>
<p>It <em>is </em>that bad, really. How many people has he seen this happen to? Vedek Bareil, Clara Raine from engineering, countless more. They seemed to bear it with so much composure. Vision swimming, he slides out of his chair and onto the floor under the desk. He can’t think clearly. It’s like being trapped underwater. He huddles in the shadow of his desk chair, eyes jammed shut, fingers twisting into the folds on his uniform. It’s not worth saying that it’s unfair – it would be a waste of headspace to pity himself. Two weeks. It is unfair. He never realised quite how disgustingly, awfully unfair it was before. At least most people have a medical professional to help them through it, to explain and rationalise. He <em>is</em> the doctor. No one can be there to help <em>him.</em></p>
<p>The computer chirps. <em>“The time is 1200 hours.”</em></p>
<p><em>Garak</em>. It’s that time of the week, again. Between the battle with the Jem’Hadar in the Gamma Quadrant the day before and… <em>this, </em>it had slipped his mind. Garak can’t know. He can’t. None of them can – not Jadzia, not Miles, not Kira or Sisko or the nurses. How is he supposed to tell them something like that? <em>Apologies, but my incident report is going to be in late this week. By the way, I’ll be dead by the end of the month. Sorry about that. </em>Jadzia’s face would fall, Miles would deny it and demand someone find a solution where none exists. He can see Kira's blank shock. Can hear Sisko’s heavy words. And Garak-</p>
<p>He has to get up before one of the other doctors comes to take over for him during his lunch break and sees him like this. He just has to get up and get out of here and leave this all behind and then he’ll be able to breathe. Lunch with Garak. It’s usually the highlight of his week, an hour where he can forget about work and war completely. So many years, now – them taking the time to share a meal, week after week after week without fail. He never quite understood the friendship they had. He supposes now he never will.</p>
<p>The steady chatter of the midday crowd out on the Promenade blurs into white noise as he walks out into open space, dragging his feet behind him. He knows what this is – shock, hands clammy and shaking, a lack of blood flow leaving this fingertips numb. He can’t meet anyone’s eyes. Nothing before him seems to register the way it should, as if he’s watching from a distance. <em>So stupid. After everything, this. So, so stupid. </em></p>
<p>Something focuses when he finds Garak in the lunchtime swarm – a lastingly out-of-place figure standing outside the replimat, pretending to be distracted by a travelling musician playing for spare slips of latinum. He’s dressed in black today. Julian guesses it’s fitting, even if the small detail is only a coincidence. Garak’s clothes have become darker over the years, darker with the shadow of the Dominion that grows over Deep Space 9 and the Alpha Quadrant. It’s sort of sad. Not the clothes – Julian doesn’t understand fashion enough at all to make a judgement about what’s best, he just wears whatever his friends recommend or whatever catches his eye – but the way the past few years seem to have worn everyone down, himself included. He didn’t pay enough attention the last time he was truly happy. Like with everything else, it’s too late now.</p>
<p>“Garak, it's me,” he greets quietly, coming up behind the distracted Cardassian and giving him a gentle tap on the shoulder to alert him to his presence. Most of the Promenade is still clouded and confused, but Garak is in surprising clarity before him.</p>
<p>“And so it is. You do have a way of creeping up on people, Doctor,” Garak sighs. “It’s a rather <em>alarming </em>trait, I must say.”</p>
<p>Despite it all, Julian feels a small smile catching. Trust Garak. It’s evil of him, to be charming even at a time like this. “As if you didn’t know I was there,” he counters, turning towards the replimat door. He only has to survive for an hour, then he can go back to his room. Feign a cold or something, find someone to cover his afternoon shift. Maybe young Nikolas Novacek’s flu is spreading.</p>
<p>“My dear doctor, I have <em>no</em> idea what you mean.”</p>
<p>There’s a long pause, Julian fighting the urge to look at Garak in case the truth is obvious in his eyes. Garak always had a way of telling when he was lying. He breathes a small sigh of relief when one of the replimat workers ushers them over to a table in the corner, giving him the chance to put some distance between them. It’s only a metre or two, but it’s easier than standing shoulder to shoulder, with all the pressure building up inside his head. The noise from the replimat is starting to filter in through his cold panic, and the roar is too loud, too much.</p>
<p>It’s Garak’s turn to acquire their meals for them, this week. It takes several moments of Garak standing expectantly by the table for Julian to realise, dragged back to the present again. He keeps thinking about the screen in the Infirmary, keeps thinking about the cell breakdowns and degeneration levels and everything awful that they mean. One second he’s sitting at the replimat, trying to find the words to tell Garak what he feels like eating, the next he’s back on the floor under his desk, test results burned into his brain.</p>
<p>“Oh, uh- I’ll have a bowl of fettuccini amatriciana, please, Garak,” he manages eventually, blinking hard in an effort to focus his eyes. “Just a small one, I’m… not that hungry.”</p>
<p>While Garak is gone, he finds his mind running through a list of names. People who have a chance of caring. Garak, probably, though the Cardassian’s emotions have always been something of a mystery to him. Jadzia, the O’Briens, Kira, Sisko, perhaps Odo, maybe even Quark. Jake and Nog and Rom. His parents. Palis, if she ever hears. His colleagues in the Infirmary.</p>
<p>“I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” Garak says, suddenly beside him again. Their meals sit on the table, steaming. Julian didn’t even notice them arrive. “But you don’t seem well, Doctor.”</p>
<p>He looks up, accidentally meeting Garak’s steely gaze. His eyes are so bright and sharp, cutting away the outer layers of Julian’s being. This was why he didn’t want to look.</p>
<p>“I know, I-” He breaks off, uncertain.</p>
<p>Garak sits down, hand falling from where it rested on Julian’s shoulder. He hadn’t recognised the touch before, but regrets its absence when it’s gone. He feels like he’s been here before, years and years ago. The first time. Now it’s the last. Although Garak’s touch is rare, it was one of the first things Julian ever knew about him, and he wishes more than almost anything that he had savoured it while he could.</p>
<p>“If something is troubling you,” Garak prompts, “you may trust in my confidentiality, of course.”</p>
<p>Some things <em>have</em> changed. Namely, when Garak makes a promise such as that, Julian believes him. He stares down at his bowl of still untouched pasta, shoulders hunched. He can’t tell whether he wants to laugh or cry or just pass out and never have to wake up again. “I…” <em>I’m dying, Garak. Terminally. Permanently. I’m going to die and I know there is nothing anyone can do. </em>His resolve cracks. The words refuse to come. “I’m just tired,” he says. “It was a difficult day yesterday.”</p>
<p>“Of course.” Garak doesn’t sound very convinced, but he doesn’t press the issue. Julian is grateful for that much, at least. He can’t do it. He can’t hurt Garak, hurt anyone, by telling the truth. He’s a coward, and they’ll hate him for it when he’s gone.</p>
<p>“Tell me about something,” he requests as he finally reaches for his fork, trying to reject the pain beginning to twist deep within his chest. His heart breaking, if he still believed in those kinds of things.</p>
<p>A sly smile crosses Garak’s face. “You may need to be more specific.”</p>
<p>Julian shrugs. “Tell me about something. Anything. Just talk to me.”</p>
<p>“What an astonishing turn of events – Doctor Julian Bashir with nothing to say,” Garak remarks, taking a sip of his tea. He never drank tea when Julian first knew him. He supposes they’ve picked up a lot of different habits from each other over the years.</p>
<p>In all honesty, Julian has a lot to say. He wishes he could thank him or apologise to him or ask him one of a thousand questions that were never answered and never will be now, wishes he could believe any of it would make a difference. “It’s been known to happen.”</p>
<p>“Mm, though I’ve found it’s rarely a good sign,” Garak replies. “You <em>do</em> look quite pale, my dear.” It’s a question. Julian has learned to recognise it when Garak’s simple statements mean more, are asking more. Something clicks in his mind and he raises his head again, staring.</p>
<p>“What did you say?”</p>
<p>“I was merely commenting on your somewhat wan appearance,” Garak says. “I meant no offence.”</p>
<p>“No, you-” Julian interrupts himself with a cough and tries to focus on his meal, barely tasting the food he usually enjoys. Things are becoming confused again. With every beat of his heart, a voice in his head reminds him, <em>dying, dying, dying. </em>He sets down his fork.“I’m sorry, Garak. I’m not up to this today. I need- I need a lie-down.” He stands so abruptly that he comes close to knocking over his cup of tea, shooting out a hand to catch it before it falls. He shouldn’t have done that. Too fast, too unnatural. Normal human beings don’t have hand-eye coordination that precise. “Have lunch without me today. You’ll have to get used to it, anyway.” Did he say that out loud? Why is the replimat so noisy today? Why can’t he think? Julian’s head feels like it’s about to explode.</p>
<p>The expression on Garak’s face is impossible to read. “I hope you’re not planning on going anywhere too soon,” he comments. “The work of a tailor can be dull at the best of times – I don’t know <em>what </em>I’d do without our little conversations to keep me going, Doctor.”</p>
<p>There’s no way Garak could know but it’s completely the wrong thing to say, and Julian is aware of how close to passing out he might be. Clinical diagnosis – panic attack. Recommended treatment – appropriate breathing exercises, relaxation techniques, removal from the stressor. He can’t afford to faint here. They’ll take him to the Infirmary, see there’s something wrong underneath the panic response, discover the truth of his condition. He already knows the radical treatments the other doctors will suggest and already knows the chances of them succeeding are almost non-existent, they’re so infinitesimal. And Garak, of all people, will be there. Garak, who says in his typical not-quite-hyperbole that he doesn’t know what he’d do without Julian, who, for some inexplicable reason, <em>cares.</em></p>
<p>“No, it’s just- with the war, and everything,” he says, trying to cover his mistake. “One day the <em>Defiant </em>will go out there-” He gestures vaguely towards the upper levels of the Promenade and the wide windows revealing the dark expanse of space beyond. “And it might not come back. You know.”</p>
<p>“Are you <em>quite</em> sure you’re all right?” Garak leans forwards, his fingers reaching out to touch Julian’s wrist – barely noticeable through the fabric of his uniform. Or, it would be, if Julian wasn’t so hyperaware of <em>everything, </em>of every tiny sensation and sound and bright point of light in the room. He always was, even before the enhancements. It’s one of the few things he remembers. The too much-ness of it all. It feels like it’s killing him even faster than the degenerative disease currently chipping away his body’s defences.</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” he snaps, snatching his hand away. “So long as you stop badgering me about it.”</p>
<p>“About <em>what, </em>exactly?” Garak probes.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters. <em>Just get out of here. Get out now.</em> People are beginning to notice, throwing curious glances in their direction. The last thing he needs is people <em>noticing</em> him <em>now. </em>It would be so much easier if they could all just forget that he ever existed. Unable to look away from Garak’s sharp, discerning gaze, he curses himself for being harsh. Is that what the Cardassian gets to have as his last Julian Bashir memory? “Look, Garak, I…” How do you say goodbye? <em>I’m really glad to be your friend. </em>Impersonal, vague, a weak thank you for years of lunches, of trust. <em>I’m going to miss you. </em>Selfish, dishonest too – dead people don’t miss anyone. It’s those they leave behind who have to experience that pain. <em>I wish I didn’t have to die. I don’t want to die and leave all this behind. </em>Honest. Too honest. “I… I just got some bad news, that’s all. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“There’s no need to apologise. These are trying times, after all.”  </p>
<p>
  <em>If only you knew. </em>
</p>
<p>“I am, of course, here if you wish to <em>vent your feelings,” </em>Garak adds with something that verges on a smirk, played off in his typical overly polite manner. “I believe that is the phrase our friend Commander Dax is fond of using. And I’m sure she, too, would be more than happy to listen.” He probably imagines that Julian’s troubles amount to a failed science experiment or the kind of usual relationship problems he likes to tease the doctor for being plagued by. Julian never told Garak that he and Leeta formalised their break-up the Bajoran way a few weeks ago, though he must've figured it out by now. Leeta. She slipped his mind for a moment, there. Another name to add to the list of victims.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter,” he tells Garak, tearing his eyes away. “I’ll see you around, okay?”</p>
<p>He thinks about Garak’s exasperated sighs when Julian dares to <em>completely</em> <em>misunderstand </em>the subtleties of Cardassian literature, thinks about stretching himself out on a sofa, looking over to see the streets of Kowloon at night, as Garak degrades the perfectly era-appropriate décor around them and makes Julian laugh with his petty viciousness. Thinks about the replimat, Garak’s hands on his shoulders. Garak’s fingers brushing his wrist, a touch just present through the barrier of his sleeve. Never again. If he’d known, he would’ve paid more attention before it was too late. But that’s the core of the grand old Human Condition, he supposes. He allows the Promenade to blur around him again as he walks away in the vague direction of his quarters, impossibly caught up in it all. Impermanence. Regret. His head hurts like someone is crushing it between their hands, aching, and all the time that thin thread of disbelief and denial weaves its way through, a poison to reality.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Personal log, Julian Bashir. Chief Medical Officer, Deep Space 9. Is that how people usually start these? I don’t know, exactly – I’ve never heard anyone else make one before. Which I guess is the point, they’re personal logs, after all. And… now you’re hearing mine. Whoever you are. Jadzia, I made you the legal recipient of my Starfleet logs, so maybe you’re listening right now. You can uh… do whatever you want with this, I guess. It’s not like I’m going to be able to care. [Laughs]. Maybe you can play it over the speakers in the interactive exhibit they set up about my life in Starfleet headquarters. Just make sure you cut out all the embarrassing bits. Ha.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I actually feel sort of fine, you know? That’s the worst thing. I ran the projections, and it’ll still be a day or two before I start to experience the more severe effects of the degeneration. The files are all on my personal drive if anyone wants to look at those and… understand what went wrong. In case I don’t end up saying it before I- [Pause persists for 26 seconds]. God, this is so stupid. I’m sorry. Bashir out. Computer, end personal log.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Julian’s quarters look like a makeshift hospital ward. That’s what they are now, he supposes. Except there’s only one patient, and they’re also the doctor. It was something of a heist to transport all the supplies from the Infirmary and medical stores to his room – he had to do it at night to avoid being seen, avoiding the nightshift nurses, using the racket coming from Quark’s as a cover. When one of the nurses did notice him, he smiled and told her he couldn’t sleep because of an idea for his research he’d got. She laughed and nodded along. That was a Doctor Bashir kind of thing to do. See you at the medical staff party the day after tomorrow, sir. I know it’s useless to tell you to try to get some rest before you’re on duty, but I <em>will</em> try. Yes, goodnight, sir. Trenu Nawa. That’s her name. He doesn’t think he’s ever really had a conversation with her before. So many people on Deep Space 9, so many people under his command who he never took the time to understand as individuals. What a waste.</p>
<p>He’s tried to set up his bedroom, tucked away around the corner from the open living space, to be as comfortable as possible, how he would if he was preparing for the inexorable death of anyone else on the station. Devices to read his vital signs as well as the less vital ones, the scanner that offers the current status of his body’s degradation, several blood count test kits.</p>
<p>The whole thing is fairly simple when it comes down to it. When he caught the blast from the console on the <em>Defiant </em>during the confrontation with that stray Dominion ship the other day, he was essentially infected with a degenerative illness – a radiation sickness that breaks down the bonds that hold his body together. With his altered genetic state, it’s harder to tell just how the disease will affect him. Not in any way that’ll be pleasant is a given. Looking around this shadowy quarters, he already feels a bit nauseous. It could be the illness itself or the overwhelming anxiety at the thought of this space and what it means, but either way, it’s terrifying. He’s trying to be pragmatic, he really is. Yesterday evening, lying awake and struggling to hold back tears, he thought he could be. He believed he could face death bravely. His ridiculous arrogance, returning to haunt him once more.</p>
<p>In the bathroom an hour before his shift begins, he stops and stares at himself in the mirror for a while. Julian Subatoi Bashir. Is that really his face, his body? His own skin, a little paler than it should be? There are dark marks beneath his eyes, symptoms of his night of barely any sleep, and everything about his reflection in the glass seems so… <em>alien</em>. He’s on the outside, looking in. And it’s a real mess before his eyes just now, a <em>real </em>mess. Of course, Julian Bashir has always been a messy individual, no matter how he’d like to be seen by others, but this reaches a whole new level.</p>
<p>He puts his uniform on. Pins his Starfleet badge to his breast. Maybe there’s something else he should be doing with this little time he has left. His parents. It’s been months since they last exchanged messages, longer since he last saw their faces and heard them speak aloud. “Computer, I’d like to prerecord a message to be sent in ten days,” he announces, catching sight of his own dull gaze again in the black screen of a medical device and quickly looking away. “For Richard and Amsha Bashir.”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Please state the message after the chime. Message will be delivered after a period of ten standard Bajoran days.”</em>
</p>
<p>Ten days should be enough. He tries to wipe the sweat on his palms away on his trousers, suppressing panic again. “Mother, father, this is Julian. I’m sure you’ve already heard by now, but I’m dead.” It comes out so cold. Colder than he meant it to be. “I’m leaving this recording behind so…” What is he leaving it behind for? What does he have to say to them? So many things, so many things that feel selfish and cruel to bring up now, when the Bashirs will be hearing this as they learn their only child is gone forever. “So that you know I did think of you, in the end.” It’s part of the truth, anyway. He closes his eyes and struggles through a deep breath. “That’s all. End of message.” There. It’s not so hard, saying goodbye. You just have to lie. Julian’s never been particularly good at lying, but he is good at pretending – he’s been doing it his entire life. He only has to pretend for a few days more, and then it’ll all be over. A stab of bitter emotion cuts its way through his chest like a knife.</p>
<p>“God, pull it together,” he mutters to the empty room, burying his face in his hands. The faint whirring of the medical devices set up by his bed is becoming harder and harder to ignore. He has to leave his quarters before he loses his mind. He has to make things normal.</p>
<p>“Computer… locate Elim Garak.” <em>Coward. Weak. Can’t even do one thing right, so stupid.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>“Elim Garak is on the Promenade.”</em>
</p>
<p>“Right.” Maybe he can make up for his behaviour yesterday. After all, he was in shock then. Right now he is perfectly in control.</p>
<p><em>Garak’s Clothiers </em>isn’t open to the public at this hour, but Julian learned the access codes for the front door a long time ago. After the incident with the last shop, the one that ended in smoke and a charred suit jackets, he made sure to find out those particular details, just in case. Garak has countless enemies out there in the universe, who’s to say one might not try their hand at revenge tomorrow? Today? It preoccupies him more than it should. At least now he knows he’ll probably be the first one to go. He’ll leave that mess behind for Garak to deal with. He won’t have to worry about it. He’ll be dead.</p>
<p>“I do hope that’s you, my dear doctor,” comes the call from the back of the shop. “It’s a little early in the day for a criminal visit.”</p>
<p>Julian steps around a stack of bright, patterned fabrics to find Garak crouched down at the foot of a dress, mending a few loose stitches on the hem. It’s a nice dress, in more of a Bajoran style than a Cardassian one. The colours are Bajoran, too – rich red, tinges of gold. He wonders whether the plain, simple tailor Garak he met all those years ago would ever have imagined creating something like this. His pride, his superiority, only runs so deep. Julian uncovered the base of it after just a year. These days, it feels like nothing at all.</p>
<p>“I came to apologise for yesterday,” he says, for want of something better to say. “I didn’t mean to storm off on you like that, Garak. I shouldn’t have taken out my… my problems on you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s <em>quite</em> all right,” Garak replies. He stands up with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if nothing could matter less in the world. “I take it you’re feeling better, then.”</p>
<p>Emotionally, maybe. Or at least he feels more numb. Physically, he already feels like he’s got on foot in the grave. Despite the medication he took before leaving his quarters, the nausea is incessant. His whole body aches, right down to the soles of his feet. “Yes, a lot better,” he says. “I just uh- needed to get some sleep.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m relieved to hear your condition has improved.” Garak meets his eyes then, an aloof curiosity curling about his features. Julian tries not to shrink under the intensity of his gaze, always so sharp and cutting through his defences. If he wasn’t so tired, if he didn’t feel so disgustingly exhausted and bored with suffering, he might enjoy fighting back. Today he can only mount a shaky response. It takes all his effort just to repress the panicked despair and keep himself from backing away. “You still look a little pale, I must say,” Garak continues. “Are you sure you’re well?”</p>
<p>He can’t bring himself to say something so obviously dishonest. But the truth is no good either. “Look, Garak, I… I’ve got to get to the Infirmary. A lot to do, you know. I just wanted to stop by to let you know I really wasn’t intending on coming across so short with you at lunch. That’s all.”</p>
<p>“Have you had breakfast yet, Doctor?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he lies. He felt far too sick for food. Now the nausea is so much worse, he can’t imagine he’d even be able to keep a cup of Tarkalean tea down, let alone his usual full breakfast.</p>
<p>“What a shame. I was <em>just</em> planning on heading down to the replimat for a bite to eat.”</p>
<p>It isn’t fair. Garak knows him too well, knows how to have him just at the drop of a hat. It’s that annoying trait of <em>reading </em>people he probably mastered during his years as an Obsidian Order agent, letting him see past Julian’s pretence and under the skin of the man behind it. He can remember the third or fourth time when they ate lunch together and it already felt like they’d been friends for years. Garak had played him so perfectly.</p>
<p>“I don’t have to be at the Infirmary right away,” he admits, daring a careful step back to avoid the intensity of Garak’s enigmatic presence, still bright despite everything. “If you’d like me to join you.”</p>
<p>“Of course, of <em>course,” </em>Garak says emphatically. “Always, my dear doctor. Constable Odo, after all, may be a principled man, but he does lack a certain skill for early morning conversation.”</p>
<p>“And I don’t?”</p>
<p>“Not at all.”</p>
<p>The Promenade is still in the process of waking up outside of Garak’s tailor shop, most of the people hovering around Bajoran or Starfleet workers getting ready for the start of another day. Shop owners tidying facades, putting out signs to advertise the current special offers. Julian looks on it all with a morose expression. To think he actually got <em>bored </em>of seeing this every day, felt sick and tired of the compact, closed-off nature of Deep Space 9. Now, he’d give just about anything not to lose it. He wonders where they’ll bury him, afterwards. He should probably check was his documentation says. Bajor might be nice, if they’d let him. This station has been more of a home to him than any place on Earth ever was.</p>
<p>“You might be the only person who thinks that,” he says as they stroll towards the replimat at a leisurely pace as if they have all the time in the world.</p>
<p>“Thinks what, exactly?”</p>
<p>“That I’m good at having conversations. I’m not sure anyone else on this station, or off it for that matter, would describe me like that.”</p>
<p>Garak makes a small, rather derisive noise in the back of his throat. He’s wearing black again today. Julian is so sick of black. “Believe me, Doctor, if they <em>do </em>believe that, then they are sadly misinformed. Anyone who knows you well knows they are few individuals with such a talent for charm.”</p>
<p>He’s exaggerating, of course, or maybe lying completely, but it’s still sweet. Julian clings onto Garak’s praise like each half-kind compliment is a plaster to put across a wound, never quite managing to heal but enough to stop the bleeding. Even if most of what Garak ever says might be hyperbole, lies told for no particular reason at all, he’s desperate to hear it. He’s desperate to be wanted, or needed. At least, he usually is. It’s hard not to wish today that no one on Deep Space 9 cared about him at all.</p>
<p>“Oi, Julian!”</p>
<p>He turns to see Miles waving at him from further down the Promenade, carrying his morning cup of coffee in one hand. The guilt stings worse than ever, maybe because he knows if their roles were reversed, Miles would tell him. He’d break it to Julian in the kindest way possible, pragmatic enough to see there was no point in denying the inevitable. He lives in the real world. Julian lives in his own head first. The rest is simply additional.</p>
<p>“Morning,” he greets as they meet Miles by the replimat entrance, Julian doing his utmost best to put on a brave face.</p>
<p>“You feeling all right?” Miles asks, squinting at him a little. “You’re looking a bit peaky.”</p>
<p>“Just a busy week,” Julian replies, and unlike with Garak, it seems to be accepted without a second thought. Too trusting, that’s Miles. He just assumes when someone, when a <em>friend,</em> says a thing, it’s what they mean. “You don’t want to join us for a quick breakfast?”</p>
<p>Miles glances between Julian and Garak, almost looking a little nervous. “No, thanks, Julian. I’ve got to get down to the docking ring. When do you wanna meet at Quark’s tonight?”</p>
<p>“Er… tonight?”</p>
<p>With an exasperated sigh, Miles makes a gun motion with his free hand. <em>“Julian Bashir, Secret Agent? </em>I thought you said you’d booked the holosuite for today after dinner.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Yes, I suppose I did, but…” He trails off, barely restraining himself from casting a desperate look in Garak’s direction. “I’m sorry, Miles, I’m not sure I’m up to it today. I’ve just got so much on my plate at the moment. Do you mind if I offer our slot to Jadzia and Kira? So the money doesn’t go to waste.”</p>
<p>Miles frowns, because even he’s capable of noticing how out of character that is for Julian. It’s another sad thought, that he’ll never be able to pay Quark’s ridiculous rates to use a holosuite again – for the rest of his short life, he’s going to be stuck as Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer, dressed in his lie of a Starfleet uniform and forcing polite smiles for the world.</p>
<p>“Well, sure,” Miles replies. “Just let me know when you’ve got time to rearrange.”</p>
<p>“Will do,” he promises. Another lie. Oh well.</p>
<p>Sitting down in the replimat once more, he forces himself to take a few sips of water while Garak eats, cringing at the sickening sense of the liquid sinking down into his suffering body. He’ll need to organise some kind of medical sustenance if he doesn’t want to die a lot faster, with the way things are going. It already seems impossible that he could keep a proper meal down. He wasn’t expecting the nausea to be this bad. Pain management is the first thing on his list for when he gets to the Infirmary. He won’t be able to put on a very good show of being <em>fine </em>if he can’t walk.</p>
<p>“Garak?”</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>He raises his eyes to the roof, high above, with its decorative Cardassian beams and pieces of Bajoran ribbon said to bring good luck tied here and there by passers-by. “Do you ever think about <em>death?”</em></p>
<p>“Isn’t it a little early in the day for such a morbid topic of conversation?’ Garak replies lightly.</p>
<p>Julian shrugs, leaning back. “I just wondered what you Cardassians have to say about that. Do you believe in life after death?</p>
<p>“Religion went out of fashion on Cardassian long ago, my dear doctor. A Cardassian considers only what he can do with his time while he is alive.”</p>
<p>“Servitude to the state, you mean.”</p>
<p>“It <em>is </em>the standard by which a Cardassian’s life and worth are judged. The most any Cardassian can hope for after death is for an impressive monument to be erected in their honour, as repayment for all their years of dedicated service.”</p>
<p>“Hm.” He can’t imagine anyone’s going to be putting up any statues for him after next week when he makes his final departure. If only he’d got around to completing his prion research. Then he might’ve done something worthwhile to be remembered for. As it happens, Julian Bashir is <em>not </em>a hero. He’ll fade into obscurity like the relative nobody that he is, like most of the people who make their way through the universe.</p>
<p>“Am I to assume the devout atmosphere of a Bajoran space station has swayed you to the side of spirituality?” Garak asks, giving a sly smile. Julian missed his teasing, when they were apart.</p>
<p>“No,” he concedes. “No, not really. Though, I mean – who knows? The Prophets turned out to be real, even if they might not have been exactly how the Bajorans imagined. Maybe there is something… beyond.” He knows he’s clutching at straws, trying to find some small flicker of comfort in a bleak situation. But for the first time in his life, he wonders whether he might like to believe in <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Garak says. “But as any Cardassian will tell you, it is <em>far </em>more worth your time to focus on your value in the present.”</p>
<p>“And how I can improve that value by dedicating my every waking hour to the empowerment of the Cardassian Union, I’m sure.”</p>
<p>Garak dips his head, a concession.</p>
<p>He frowns. “I suppose the state <em>is </em>a sort of religion to you, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“There’s not a Cardassian in the galaxy who will tell you otherwise.” Which coming from Garak, of course, means something more along the lines of <em>many Cardassians actually feel the complete opposite, but I’m not going to tell you that. </em>Julian suddenly feels like he doesn’t know enough Cardassians. There are billions of them out there, probably a lot unaligned with the Cardassian Union – individuals, with minds of their own. Whatever he might like to say, Garak is proof in himself that his race is not a monolith. So many people that Julian will never know, never get to learn from. It makes him feel so small.</p>
<p>“I never bought that suit, did I?” he says, struck by another thought.</p>
<p>“Which suit are you referring to, precisely?”</p>
<p>“When we first met here,” he explains, “you asked me to buy a suit. At uh… 2055, I think it was. You said it would make me into a new man. But I never bought it.”</p>
<p>Garak tilts his chin up, looking down on Julian with a curious and rather unreadable expression in his pale eyes. “If I recall correctly, you have purchased <em>several </em>suits from me over the years, Doctor.”</p>
<p>“Yes, but they were all ones I asked you for. Specifically. And I know how you hate 20th-century Earth fashions.”</p>
<p>“Like most things, it becomes less offensive over time. As for <em>that </em>suit, that was nothing. A distraction, as I believe you’re well aware. There other styles that would have suited you far more, in my expert opinion.”</p>
<p>“Is that something you’ve thought about, then? What kind of clothes would suit me?”</p>
<p>“Now, there’s no need to sound so suspicious,” Garak replies, feigning a detachedly warm tone. “It is my profession, after all.”</p>
<p><em>“One </em>of your professions.”</p>
<p>Something sparks in Garak’s expression, bright and sharp. It’s the sort of thing Julian used to be nervous around, back when he still didn’t feel as if he understood this strange Cardassian man and all his eccentric ways. “Even now, it <em>always </em>comes back to this, doesn’t it?”</p>
<p>Julian laughs softly. “Don’t worry, Garak. I promise not to tell anyone you’re actually an outcast spy and not a plain, <em>simple </em>tailor.”</p>
<p>“I can’t imagine where you came by such a such a shocking notion.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I have my sources. Well, source. He’s not usually very reliable, I have to admit, but I think I can tell when he’s telling the truth. Or part of it, at least.”</p>
<p>“Hm. Well, that may be,” Garak says, never once breaking his focus, gaze so strong it’s like it’s burning itself into the skin of Julian’s cheeks, his neck. “But as always, I would warn against allowing your imagination to run away with you.”</p>
<p>That brings him back to the ground. Like a little voice whispering in his ear, <em>dying, remember? Don’t let your imagination run away with you. Don’t imagine you have anything, not now. </em></p>
<p>He looks back at Garak and feels as though he’s missing something. He’s always been missing something – some tiny, imperceptible detail that would’ve answered all his questions, given him purpose. And it has something to do with Garak. It has to. <em>You’re being an idiot, Julian Subatoi Bashir. </em>But there’s a glint in Garak’s eyes that draws him in, like a moth to a bright blue flame. He can almost reach it, a confused emotion below the surface, buried in the mess of Julian Bashir that lies beneath the professional, pristine exterior.</p>
<p>“It was easier, wasn’t it?” he says.</p>
<p>“What was, Doctor?”</p>
<p>“Us. It was easier when I didn’t know you were a spy, when you didn’t know… much about me. Don’t you think?”</p>
<p>Garak seems to consider it for a moment, picking away at the pieces of replicated fruit on his plate. Why is everything he does so precise? How is the mask sewn so securely to his face, preventing Julian from ever seeing beyond? Even now, even after all these long years of friendship. “Lies are always easier than hard truths,” Garak says eventually. “As a man with such a preference for fantasy, I believe you’re well-acquainted with that fact.”</p>
<p>For more reasons than just a love of fantasy. Julian’s whole life is a lie, in a cynical sense. Not that Garak knows that – at least, he really hopes he doesn’t.</p>
<p>“I guess you’re probably right,” he sighs. His headache is getting worse again.</p>
<p>“When have I <em>ever </em>led you astray?” Garak asks, smiling over his glass of juice.</p>
<p>Julian snorts and forces another sip of water down, feeling half-eviscerated. The universe is tearing him out from the inside, strewing his internal organs across the Promenade in a sickening show of pity as they fail one by one, leaving his body a shell, a chasm. He can taste blood in his too dry mouth. He can feel it burning in the place between his eyes where the world begins and ends, incessant. He can feel fingers closing around his throat, and in a strange way, he wishes they would press in harder. The ecstasy of suffering. Something dark flickers in the back of his brain when he next meets Garak’s eyes, and he quickly looks away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Personal log, Julian Bashir. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I visited the Bajoran temple on the station for the first time today. Kira’s always said we’re welcome to join the services there since we’re residents, and a lot us have had something to do with the Prophets over the years. I just never really thought it was for me, you know? Anyway, I went after the midday ceremony and spoke to one of the ranjen there, he was nice. I think he might’ve guessed some of it all. He said a prayer for me. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Raka-ja ut shala morala, ema bo roo kana, uranak ralanon Bashir. That’s what he said. I asked Kira what it meant after shift this afternoon, she told me it’s a request to the Prophets to watch over someone, to protect them. Usually, it’s meant for people who are already dead. Which isn’t too far from the truth, I guess.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’ve managed to work out a medication so I can at least drink without being sick. Food is something else, but it probably won’t matter soon anyway. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I can feel myself dying now. It’s so… exhausting.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The most recent scans are saved on my computer, by the way. They’re er... not looking too good. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Do you know what it’s like to be dying?</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A whole morning passes without incident. No one enquires about his health. No one notices him jamming hyposprays into his neck in the back of the Infirmary once every hour, mechanically injecting a few more days of consciousness into his veins, drop by drop. He sits down at his desk, pretending to work on his research. In reality, his head is too muddled and painful to think clearly – he’s typing in random sentences without meaning, bizarre musings on the possibilities of quantum dynamics that probably read like the words of a madman to anyone with half a mind for science. When Jadzia drops by mid-afternoon for some painkillers for her sprained wrist and a quick chat, he doesn’t even let a hint of it slip through. He’s learned from Garak. He smiles and politely turns down her offer of paying him back for the holosuite session last night.</p>
<p>“I heard you had a fight with Garak in the replimat the day before yesterday,” she comments at one point, probing him with a devious smile. Usually, Julian might take that as an opportunity to rant – clearing his head and sating her love of gossip in one fell swoop. But what does he have to say about Garak? He shrugs and brushes it off, muttering something about <em>bad mood </em>and <em>all fine now </em>as he passes Jadzia her medication.</p>
<p>“Your wrist is only going to get better if you give it the chance to <em>heal,” </em>he says, sighing. “Just avoid physical stress for a few days, okay? For me.”</p>
<p>“If I have to. Thanks, Julian.”</p>
<p>He gives her a weak smile and promises to drop by Ops at some point in the afternoon for a visit. “Don’t thank me. It’s my job to keep the sentient components of this station running smoothly, after all.”</p>
<p>The friendly punch she gives him hurts a bit more than she could know it would. “I think doctors get off on saying things like that,” she remarks, blue eyes as bright as ever.</p>
<p>“Yes, we’re all self-important narcissists with penchants for praise,” he replies. He savours the three or four seconds where everything feels almost normal, then it’s back to hard truths again. Jadzia leaves, he skulks back to the far end of the Infirmary again and hopes no one else will come in demanding his services for the rest of the day. If he was a better liar, he might take the next few days off work to avoid it all, but he doesn’t have good enough excuses for that. And besides, leaving feels like letting go. Even now, even as the <em>very </em>terminal nature of his illness makes itself painfully evident, he finds himself clinging on normalcy, clinging to that impossible fantasy that he’s going to live a long and successful life here.</p>
<p>Around 1600 hours is when disaster strikes. Kira’s voice comes clear and cool through the Infirmary communicator, forcing him to his feet. <em>“Kira to Bashir. Medical emergency in Ops.”</em></p>
<p>He grabs his first aid bag, his tricorder. Gestures for Esme, one of the nurses, to join him.</p>
<p>“Two to beam to Ops,” he announces, trying to stay steady on his feet.</p>
<p>When the world dissolves around them, he feels a sudden swing in the pit of his stomach, and the first thing he sees on the other side is a flash of red as someone – Kira, presumably, from the colour, grabs his arm to stop him from falling. Ops spins in a kaleidoscope of bright lights and glinting silver metal, dizzying.</p>
<p>“Julian, are you okay?”</p>
<p>It comes into focus. “Er, yes,” he answers. “Who’s hurt?”</p>
<p>It’s one of the ensigns, a young half-Betazoid woman panicking over a nasty plasma burn on her lower arm in the corner, supported on either side by Jadzia and Miles. Sisko has come out of his office to offer some reassuring words to the injured ensign. He moves out of the way as Julian and Esme approach, thankfully too distracted to notice his Chief Medical officer is close to collapsing right there in the middle of Ops.</p>
<p>Ensign Geco’s plasma burns are far from the worst he’s seen – more severe is her shock reaction, a nasty storm of hyperventilation and a disassociated state. He stumbles slightly as he kneels down beside her, opening up the first aid kit and assessing the injury. <em>Come on, Julian. You know what to do here.</em></p>
<p>“What happened?” Esme asks Jadzia, already in the middle of preparing a pain relief hypo. He should’ve thought to pose that question – it’s his job, and he’s failing, and it’s irresponsible. A liability. Ensign Geco grits her teeth and tries to repress a cry of pain as Julian’s fingers catch her wrist and lift it into the light.</p>
<p>“A conduit blew up,” Jadzia explains.</p>
<p>Miles nods and grimaces. “Uncontained feedback loop. The emergency systems didn’t detect it quick enough to warn us.”</p>
<p>Julian gratefully takes the first hypo from Esme and applies it to Geco’s neck with as much calm precision as he can manage, hoping the smile he gives the ensign is enough to offer some comfort. “It’ll stop hurting in a moment,” he promises, though his voice ends up coming out a bit strained and sick sounding. He refuses to look at any of his friends, in case they can see it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Stop it. Stop trying to play the hero. </em>
</p>
<p>He drops his hands from Geco’s burned arm. He sits back, ushering Esme in the with the regenerator and shock response hypo. She’s a good nurse – she doesn’t stop to question or give him a curious look, she just moves in to take care of a patient, using her own intuition.</p>
<p>He wants to tear the Starfleet badge right off his chest. The desire to take that stupid piece of metal and crush it right beneath his heel is so overwhelming, it’s only the pained exhaustion wearing him down that prevents it. The sound of Geco’s sobs and the general whir of Ops fades into a background blur, replaced by that endless scream in the back of his mind – <em>all for nothing. Worthless. </em>And God, it really, <em>really </em>hurts. He shouldn’t be here.</p>
<p>“All right, you’re okay,” Esme says kindly, running the regenerator across the damaged skin of Geco’s arm. “Feel better?”</p>
<p>Eyes screwed shut, Geco manages a nod.</p>
<p>Kira catches Julian’s attention as he looks up, expression reserved and discerning. There’s a question in there, somewhere. A confusion in her dark gaze where she latches onto the tendrils of Julian’s truth, sees through the mask. He has to get off this shift. Get out of here before something worse than easily fixed plasma burns happens, and he is culpable.</p>
<p><em>My name is Julian Bashir, </em>he remembers. <em>I’m the Chief Medical Officer on Deep Space 9. I’m an augment, a freak. I’m dying. I’m dying absolutely and miserably alone. </em>He never really imagined marrying someone and settling down, the way someone like Miles or Sisko can. But he’d hoped he’d find someone, <em>anyone </em>before his time. It was his dream. Fall deeply, dramatically in love with some beautiful and mysterious figure, know they’re the one right away.</p>
<p>He was never good enough for that.</p>
<p>Kira helps him up with a strong hand on his shoulder, looking him up and down. She reads him like a medical scanner, some shine of concern beneath the pragmatism of her usual manner.</p>
<p>“Julian, if you’re unwell-”</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he cuts in, speaking a little too loud, a little too fast. “Really.”</p>
<p>“I’ll take her down to the Infirmary now, Doctor,” Esme announces, pulling a trembling Ensign Geco to her feet. The burns are mostly healed now, but they’ll need to apply some serious treatment to stop them from scarring. Esme or any of the other nurses would be entirely capable of doing that, no need for his assistance.</p>
<p>“I’m- I’m sorry,” Geco murmurs, using her unharmed sleeve to wipe tears from her eyes. “I’m fine now. I just-”</p>
<p>Jadzia stands up, helping Geco from the other side. “It’s okay. It’s a nasty shock, I know – it’s happened to me a thousand times. Let’s get you down to the Infirmary now, okay?”</p>
<p>Geco nods and leans into the support of her two helpers as they lead her away. Julian stands there, staring, as the turbolift doors close and they disappear. Miles is busy examining the panel where the conduit exploded. Sisko is gone. It’s just him, lost in a tiny space. He can feel Kira watching him.</p>
<p>“Jadzia said you and Garak had a falling out the other day,” she remarks, almost conversationally.</p>
<p><em>“Jadzia </em>needs to stop spreading gossip she knows nothing about,” he bites back with an unintentional edge of bitterness, picking up his first aid kit. “We didn’t fall out.”</p>
<p>“I assumed not, seeing as you had breakfast with him yesterday.”</p>
<p>“What would you know about that?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” she says indignantly. “Maybe I just happened to walk by and see the two of you sitting there? It’s a small station. I only thought you did lunch, not breakfast.”</p>
<p>He turns away, too aware that the anger burning beneath the surface of his skin has nothing to do with Jadzia or Kira but everything to do with dying, everything to do with Garak and the mystery he never solved, everything to do with <em>him. </em>“Usually, we do,” he agrees. “What difference does it make?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know – you tell me. Wait, <em>Julian.” </em>She catches his wrist as tries to move past her towards the turbolift, the sting of Kira Nerys-brand determination in her eyes. “You’re not acting like yourself, and as First Officer of this station I’m concerned for the welfare of one of my fellow senior officers.”</p>
<p>They’ve drawn Miles’ attention now, who stares from the other side of Ops in curiosity. Julian gently pulls his wrist away. He’s just glad Jadzia isn’t here to witness this. Or worse, Garak. They would see through the veil right away.</p>
<p>“If eating breakfast with someone constitutes <em>insanity </em>these days, then go ahead and lock me up,” he mutters, desperate to get out of there as soon as possible. “Otherwise, just let me do my job.”</p>
<p>“Oh, like you did it just then, for Ensign Geco?” Kira presses.</p>
<p>He has no excuse. No reply. He practically runs out of Ops, feet turning in the direction of his quarters. It’s not like he can go back to the Infirmary. Jadzia and Esme and Geco are there. His <em>job </em>is there, and he’s in no state. Sick doctors mean dead patients. He was selfish to let it go on this long.</p>
<p>He just wants to sleep. Maybe forever.</p>
<p>It would be better than the pain. This constant ache of seeing what he once had slip through his fingers, away into the darkness of space. The slow creep to eternity.</p>
<p>“Bashir to Infirmary.”</p>
<p>“Doctor Bashir – Jabara here.”</p>
<p>Covering a cough, he slinks into a shadowed corridor and swallows his regret. “I had a bad turn after being transported to Ops, I’m going for a lie-down in my quarters. You’re in charge for the rest of today.”</p>
<p>“Understood, sir. I hope you’re feeling better soon.”</p>
<p>“Yes.” He stares blankly into the blackness of the far wall, fingers twisting in the fabric of his uniform. “Yes, me too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For the first time in five years, Julian Bashir fails to set his alarm. He was never a morning person – the opposite, in fact – but day after day he input some painful early hour to be awoken, struggling out of bed with the weariness still worn into his eyes. It seemed like the only way he could ever get everything done, when each day as a Starfleet officer presented a mountain of tasks to complete. Years of research he was terrified of never finishing before his time ran out. He was always anxious, too. Once he woke up his mind often ran too fast for him to even consider going back to sleep.</p>
<p>But sickness has made him lethargic. It’s inescapable. He stayed in bed the whole evening, the whole night, to wake up in a slow stretch of fatigued agony mid-morning, for a long time too tired to move. The chirp of the communicator jolts him into awareness, piercing in the steady, dark ocean of his room.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Doctor Bashir.”</em>
</p>
<p>He raises his eyes to the ceiling above, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Yes, sir?” God, he sounds awful. Dead already. A ghost reaching out from beyond the grave, vocal cords withered and black with rot. He tries to sit up and mostly fails.</p>
<p>Sisko’s voice betrays nothing. <em>“Please report to my office at your earliest convenience. There’s a matter that requires your attention.” </em>The captain isn’t usually so vague. It’s not a good sign.</p>
<p>Dragging himself out of bed and into the bathroom feels like it’s taking everything he has left. Luckily he doesn’t have to worry about getting changed. He’s still wearing his uniform from yesterday, shoes included. Cleaning himself up is too much effort. He manages to run a comb through his hair, but that’s about it. A wave of instant regret hits when he takes his latest scans. If he saw this in a patient, he’d be gently suggesting they contact their family, check their will. Does he have a will? He must do, somewhere – it’s something of a requirement for Starfleet officers. He should update it. <em>Anyone can have my things, so long as they’re not my parents. Leeta gets to keep Kukalaka. </em>She always liked the little teddy bear, enough to hold onto even after they were done. And she’s kind and careful. She’d be a good permanent owner.</p>
<p>On his way up to Ops, he very nearly considers making a quick stop on the Promenade – at Garak’s tailor shop, to be more precise – just to say hello. He ends up walking past it, staring through the glass to meet a flash of pale eyes within. Despite his body’s aching protests, he hurries up to an awkward half-run, too aware of the watcher, too aware that just when he should be drifting away, softening the blow, something is drawing him in closer. And to Garak, of all people.</p>
<p>His first true friend here. Funny, thinking Garak to be <em>truly </em>something, other than a liar. But he was. He was like a sun – no, a black hole – in those early months and years, who filled Julian with a certain wonder, an awe for the horrific beauty of a mystery, a man he thought he’d never understand. A force of gravity impossible to escape. He was so infatuated with it, at the time. He would talk about it for hours, even if only to himself in his quarters, muddling it all over. The curiosity that was plain, simple Garak, the eccentric and decidedly <em>Cardassian </em>tailor of Deep Space 9.</p>
<p>One time, in the holosuite, in the ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple – there among the warm evening breeze and ocean of golden sand, he remembers asking, “have <em>you</em> ever been in love, Garak?” He wouldn’t have usually been so direct, but something about being Julian Bashir, secret agent, wearing that tuxedo and façade of suave superiority, had pushed him to it. As Earth’s bright sun was slipping beneath the far horizon, Garak seemed oddly at peace in the desert landscape. Maybe it reminded him of home. </p>
<p>“Doctor, if you imagine yourself to be in love with that dear Dabo girl of yours after such little time, I fear your love of fantasy may be corrupting reality once again.”</p>
<p>“This has nothing to do with me and Leeta,” he replied, rolling his eyes. Holosuite sand filled the pockets of his suit, became caught in his hair. Garak sat up a low pedestal of the ancient ruins, soaking up the remainder of the sunlight. Reptilian, of course. But sort of… majestic, or graceful, in a strange way. “I asked about <em>you. </em>Did they allow love in the Obsidian Order? Did you ever…?”</p>
<p>Garak sighed one of his typical sighs, a casual hand moving down to smooth the breast of his tuxedo jacket. It was a tell of sorts – not one that necessitated a lie, more of a… diversion. “My dear doctor, all these <em>personal </em>questions, it’s most unlike you.”</p>
<p>“Is it?”</p>
<p>“Would it surprise you to learn I’ve had my fair share of ill-advised dalliances in my time?”</p>
<p>“A little. I don’t know. Not really.” Even as night set in, it was too hot for his suit jacket. He took it off, unbuttoned the collar of his shirt to let him breathe. “Ill-advised, maybe. But dalliances? It doesn’t seem like you.”</p>
<p>“Hm.” Garak was distracted with picking some patches of dried – thankfully holosuite reproduction – blood from his sleeve. In all honesty, Garak was a better 20th-century secret agent than Julian could ever be. He shot to kill, without a second thought. He talked his way out of adverse situations – charmed sympathetic villains, terrified low-life thugs with just a smile. “There may be some truth in what you say, however, such practices are long behind me now.”</p>
<p>Julian moved a little closer to the wall of crumbling golden stone, curious. “So you don’t think you’ll ever find someone?”</p>
<p>“Doctor, really. <em>Finding </em>someone is the lesser issue.”</p>
<p>He thought about how nothing ever seemed to last, with him. “I know.”</p>
<p>“It’s the matter of finding someone who cares enough to linger, even the shadows.”</p>
<p>Trust Garak to be so dramatic about it all. “Oh, come on, I’m sure there’s someone out for you <em>somewhere.”</em></p>
<p>It must have struck a nerve, because Garak shifted in his resting place and refused to meet his gaze again, staring out towards the setting sun. “Your pity is quite unnecessary, Doctor. Truly.”</p>
<p>“So you <em>do </em>want to be in love,” Julian surmised, a grin spreading across his face. </p>
<p>“Not at all,” Garak objected rather tersely, as if Julian’s words were a personal affront. “The opposite, my dear doctor. Such sentimentality is always a weakness, though in most it can be excused.”</p>
<p>“But not in you.” It wasn’t really a question. As such, Garak offered him no reply.</p>
<p><em>It doesn’t make sense. </em>On his way up in the turbolift, little parts of that interaction replay in his mind, disordered. <em>It doesn’t make sense at all.</em></p>
<p>“What doesn’t make sense?” Jadzia meets him at the turbolift door, clearly waiting to go down. He must have spoken aloud. She looks concerned, which makes him wonder whether perhaps Kira let her in on the mystery of Julian’s out-of-character behaviour. Or maybe just because he looks like a corpse. He should’ve considered putting make-up on, or something. But no. He was too far gone for that. He’s barely capable of walking now.</p>
<p>“Oh, nothing,” he replies, trying to smile. “I’m here to see the captain. How’s the wrist?”</p>
<p>Jadzia shrugs. “Fine. See you in a bit?”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p><em>Why aren’t you telling anyone? Why are you keeping this to yourself? You should tell someone – tell anyone. </em>Well, of course he <em>should. </em>But that’s far from the point. Some part of him even wants to tell the truth, cast that burden across the back of someone else. And yet when he considers opening his mouth, the words catch in his throat.</p>
<p>“Captain, you wanted to see me?”</p>
<p>Sisko sits at his desk, evidently waiting for his Chief Medical Officer to arrive. Julian was always jealous of this office. It’s quiet, tucked out of the way, and the window looks out over a constant view of star-flecked blackness. There are no distractions, except for the distant chatter and rumble of Ops on the other side of the door. Captain Sisko keeps his office clean. The only personal item is that baseball of his, sitting on the table. The ball has earned something of a mythical status on Deep Space 9 over the past few years. Julian chooses to look at <em>it</em> instead of Sisko as he steps over the threshold, fingers twitching nervously.</p>
<p>“Ah, Doctor.” Sisko gestures towards the chair on the other side of his desk. “Please, do sit down.”</p>
<p>Julian does as he’s told. He keeps his gaze focused on the part of Sisko’s forehead just above his eyes. “I apologise for the delay,” he says. “I was…”</p>
<p>“Asleep,” Sisko finishes for him, tone indiscernible. “Yes, Jabara alerted me to the fact you didn’t show up to your shift this morning, after taking yesterday afternoon off due to a mystery illness.” He frowns. “Major Kira seems to be under the impression you might be hiding some kind of injury. I was hoping you might be able to assure me that’s not the case.”</p>
<p>It’s too close to the truth for comfort. Julian tries to sit up a little straighter, fingers clenching in the dark fabric on his trousers. “I’m not injured, sir,” he promises. Not <em>quite </em>a lie. The injury itself is healed. He’ll just be feeling its lingering effects for the remainder of his sorry life.</p>
<p>“I’m glad to hear it. Would you mind explaining your recent behaviour, then?”</p>
<p>“What recent behaviour?”</p>
<p>“Julian,” Sisko says, sounding tired. “I’ve had multiple people raise concerns over your wellbeing over the past few days, ever since the <em>Defiant </em>returned from the Gamma Quadrant. Jabara assured me the wound you received while aiding a fellow officer on the bridge during that confrontation with the Jem’Hadar was treated on the scene.”</p>
<p>“That’s right,” Julian agrees.</p>
<p>“You’re not helping me here, Doctor.”</p>
<p>Julian can feel the pressure building up at the front of his mind, urging him to move. To run away. But he can’t – he’s trapped here in this chair, suffocating. “I… I… it’s personal, sir. I can’t…” He trails off again, aware he must look like a mess right now. He should’ve just diagnosed himself with the flu or something, kept to his quarters and forbid anyone to see him.</p>
<p>“Well, I can’t force you to tell me anything,” Sisko sighs. “But I also can’t have officers on duty who are unfit to work. So I’m putting you on leave until you can assure me nothing will interfere with your position as Chief Medical Officer of this station.”</p>
<p>He decides to start staring at his hands instead. Brown skin, a bit pale and wan. “I understand, sir.”</p>
<p>The silence persists between them for a long time. Julian feels disassociated.</p>
<p>“All right. If there’s nothing more you can tell me, then you’re dismissed,” Sisko says. Julian dares to meet his eyes, dark and kind and laced with concern. It’s embarrassing, really, but in some bizarre way, Sisko is like… like a <em>father, </em>almost. At least, he certainly was when Julian first arrived on the station. <em>You should tell him. You should tell him so many things. </em>But he doesn’t. He nods, rises silently, and walks away.</p>
<p>He has no work to go back to. No friends he can face.</p>
<p>There is only one place for lonely, lost people on Deep Space 9 to go.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Julian here. I know these are getting a bit few and far between, but I’m not sure what exactly I can tell you that’s new. I’ve located the source of the degeneration, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I can’t think of anything that could be more than a temporary fix. Just so you don’t think I didn’t try. [Proceeding silence suggests he knows he did not try, but nothing more is said of it. Sighs, collects himself.]</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I had a bath today. I don’t think I’ve had a bath in years and years. I couldn’t trust myself not to collapse standing up in the shower, so it seemed like the only way. Jadzia tried to contact me to invite me to dinner with her and Kira. I pretended I didn’t hear. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? And now Miles wants to rearrange our holosuite session. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I wish they’d all just leave it alone. I don’t understand why…</em>
</p>
<p><em>It’s not so bad, is it? Centuries ago on Earth, someone would be </em>lucky <em>to have lived as long as I have. So really I should be grateful. I’ve got to see and do more in five years than most people get to in a lifetime. It’s not even going to be that painful, with the medications I’ve settled on. I honestly can’t complain.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Personal log, Julian Bashir, by the way. Chief Medical Officer on Deep Space 9. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I think I need a drink.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>*</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Spaced out on meds to stop him from throwing it all back up again, he limps down the corridor to the turbolift and calls for the Promenade. Practically, he knows this is the exact opposite of what he <em>should </em>be doing. He can’t even be sure what effect it might have on his system, given the damage it's already suffered over the past few days. But God, he doesn’t care. He just wishes he were already dead. The medicine has made him drowsy, made it all seem distant. Everything around him feels unreal, almost like the holosuite reproduction of DS9 they used to use for training exercises. He’s not going to think tonight. And seriously, who gives a damn? Not Julian Bashir, not anymore. Maybe he’ll drop dead right in the middle of Quark’s – put on a show for everyone. That could be entertaining.</p>
<p>Anyone he knows closely is absent from the bar tonight, one small thing to be grateful for. He meets Leeta’s eyes across the room as he enters. She waves, smiling brightly. It’s a busy night – the end of the week – and Quark seems to have cracked out a brand new dabo wheel, loud and glittering and flashing piercing light at every patron. He acknowledges Leeta with a nod, too lost to force anything more. He never deserved her. And he misses her, too. Not romantically – they weren’t more than a casual thing, they parted on good terms, they’re still friends. The relationship they had was open and happy. Maybe that’s what he misses, being happy with her. There aren’t many other people who felt that kind of comfort around. Garak, perhaps. With friends like Miles, it’s different. He’s not sure how, exactly, but it is.</p>
<p>“Drinking alone tonight, Doctor?”</p>
<p>Quark’s address as he takes a seat at the bar, perching uncomfortably on an isolated stool, is expected but still raises a sting. “Is that how you talk to all your customers?” he asks, using the counter for support.</p>
<p>“One of those nights, huh?” Quark remarks. “Well, what can I get you? Beer? Whiskey?”</p>
<p>Julian pauses, considering. He didn’t come up with a plan for what he’d do when he arrived. He was almost imagining he’d run into Jadzia or one of the others here – to drive him away or draw him in, he’s not sure. “Kanar,” he says.</p>
<p>“Kanar? You know what that can do to a <em>human?” </em>Quark asks, grinning.</p>
<p>“Well, I guess I’m about to find out, aren’t I?”</p>
<p>Quark raises his hands as if to say, <em>it’s your funeral. </em>He reaches for the classic decorative bottle behind the bar, pours Julian a generous glass of the syrupy dark liquid. Julian studies the kanar for a moment before taking a sip, barely tasting the drink as it slips down his throat, sickening. Strong, too. Another thing ticked off his bucket list, at least. Kanar. It’s not great. Garak would probably torment him with indignation for hours for saying that.</p>
<p><em>Oh, Garak. </em>Where is he right now? Finishing up some late-night commissions in his tailor shop? Having dinner in his quarters? Does <em>he</em> ever wonder what Julian is doing, when they’re not together? Julian supposes he thinks about Garak all the time, ten times a day at <em>minimum, </em>surely. Even after all these years, Garak is such a mystery – it’d be impossible <em>not </em>to think of him, of all the questions his mere existence seems to pose. He might be just as Cardassian, but Elim Garak is <em>far </em>more delicious than this awful kanar. God, Julian must already be drunk if he’s thinking insane, weird things like that. The combination of kanar and meds is seriously messing with his head. Before he knows it, his glass is empty, and he’s swaying a little on his stool. Quark floats in his peripheral vision – so do others, faceless people whose conversations form a thrum running through Julian, beating weakly alongside his heart in his chest.</p>
<p>He ends up with another drink, somehow. He doesn’t care. The kanar has torn the weight from shoulders, leaving him bereft and drifting through space. He feels giddy and unreal, like the whole world is just some fabrication and nothing matters. Between dabo games, Leeta finds him at the bar and frowns. It’s sort of hard to register her presence as she walks up to him. They first met here, he remembers. He felt so young and unconcerned back then. Or maybe it’s just the rose-coloured glasses of the past. Leeta’s jumpsuit is sort of like roses. Pink like pale roses, stitched with gold. <em>Garak </em>made those clothes. He could’ve known from the embroidery alone. On Deep Space 9, only Garak is so delicate and fine, only Garak creates such particular, significant designs.</p>
<p>“Julian, you look <em>sick,” </em>Leeta tells him, cutting through the haze.</p>
<p>“M’fine,” he mutters, averting his eyes and reaching for his glass again. “How are you?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m all right,” she replies. “But Julie, I’m serious. You sure you’re feeling okay?”</p>
<p>He’s having a lot of fun staring into the countertop before him, picking out tiny scratches on the otherwise smooth surface, wondering about all the people who sat here before him. “That’s what I said.”</p>
<p>Leeta casts an anxious glance back towards her dabo wheel, at a silvery-haired young woman waving for her to come over, call muffled by the chatter of the room. “I need to get back to work,” she tells him. “But I’ll call someone for you.”</p>
<p>“No… no need,” he says, leaning into the crook of his elbow and wishing the world away.</p>
<p>Her smile is so kind it sort of hurts. Fearful and frustrated, too, searching him for answers. “Julian, you’ve got to be better to yourself than this. I-”</p>
<p>“Is this some new break time I don’t know about?” Quark interrupts, yelling from the other end of the counter.</p>
<p>Glaring, Leeta picks up a tray of drinks and gives Julian one final worried look. “Just don’t have anything more tonight, okay? That stuff’s stronger than is good for humans – Quark should know better.”</p>
<p>“I don’t need you to treat me like a child,” he says, and immediately regrets it.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t I?”</p>
<p>God, he feels close to sinking. The world turning to kanar around him. Dark and sickly and drowning him in its depths. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“I know, Julie,” she sighs. “I know.”</p>
<p>The next person to find him is Jadzia. He doesn’t notice her until she’s right on top of him, dressed in casual mauve with her Starfleet badge pinned haphazardly to her breast. It occurs to him that he’s still wearing his Starfleet uniform. Which is strange, seeing as he’ll never serve a shift ever again. Why did he even wear his commbadge, if he wanted to be left alone? It’s so pathetic, so cowardly. He’s just hoping other people will be there to clean up the mess he leaves behind, relieve him of guilt and loneliness. Worse even than his father. Selfish.</p>
<p>Jadzia takes a seat beside him, eyeing his half-drunk glass of kanar, the way he’s slumped over the bar like a doll, lifeless. Leeta must’ve called her. Or perhaps she came of her own accord, worried about him. After all, gossip spreads fast on this station. Half its residents have probably already heard about the latest mystery of the walking disaster that is Julian Bashir. Making friends just to break them. Loving people and leaving them in the ground to rot.</p>
<p>“Evening, Julian.”</p>
<p>Whether he wants to laugh or cry or cease existing altogether, he can’t tell. “Hello, <em>Jadzia.” </em>He’s glad he’s drunk. If he had his normal brain – well, as normal as any mind of his could be, with all its broken parts and buried regrets – he doesn’t think he could face her. She’ll hate him for this, after the end. She should.</p>
<p>“Is that your first drink?” she asks, gesturing to the kanar.</p>
<p>He shrugs. “Second. Or third. What are… are <em>you</em> doing here?” Forming complete sentences is a struggle. He knows what he intends to say, the apology he wishes he could convey to Jadzia, to Leeta, to all of them. But they fail to make themselves known as he speaks, lost in the void.</p>
<p>“Leeta sent me a message. I thought she was exaggerating.” She looks him up and down. <em>Clearly, she wasn’t, </em>are the words he can just make out in that confusing realm of the not-quite-said in his unsteady state.</p>
<p>“Julian,” she begins, forcing him to meet her eyes, “what <em>the hell</em> is going on with you? Turning down offers for company, collapsing in Ops. And I just heard from Nerys that Benjamin dismissed you from duty this morning.”</p>
<p>“Had stuff to… sort out,” he mumbles. With nothing better for his hands to do, he reaches for his kanar glass and takes a sip. It’s the first mouthful he’s hand in a while, and as it slips down a wave of nausea rises up in response. He shudders, tenses. Jadzia doesn’t try to stop him or snatch the glass away, she just watches, brow creased.</p>
<p>“Well, I’m assuming it’s not sorted,” she remarks. “Julian-” She reaches out and places a hand on his forearm, a tether. He quickly shrugs it off and leans away from her in some desperate, <em>vain</em> attempt to keep inside his head, away from reality. The effects of the kanar are no less present – he feels sick and dizzy and silly and close to slipping right off his barstool and onto the floor – but they’re joined now by an impending sense of doom. The panic twists through him – grabs at his heart, his lungs, his throat. His kanar glass, now almost empty, falls from his hand and rests on its side on the counter. A single line of sticky liquid creeps out to glisten upon the bar, a little like blood.</p>
<p>“Please,” he says, begging now. “Just leave me alone. I- I can’t…. I can’t…”</p>
<p>Something in Jadzia’s expression softens. “Can’t what, Julian?”</p>
<p>“Can’t talk to you.”</p>
<p>She sighs, picking up the kanar glass and setting it upright further down the bar. “Is there anyone you <em>can</em> talk to?”</p>
<p>Without thinking, he buries his face in his arms and half-whispers, “Garak.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Jadzia says softly. “I’ll go find Garak. You stay right here, got it? Don’t even think about moving a <em>muscle.” </em></p>
<p>By the time he’s processed her words, she’s already halfway across Quark’s, pausing at the door to berate its Ferengi proprietor with terrifying Dax determination. He hears faint snatches of conversation – <em>see the state he’s in, unbelievable, really disappointed Quark, should report you to the captain.</em></p>
<p>“N-no…” he mumbles, trying to sit up. “Jadzia, wait…” But she’s gone. He looks around and sees only shadows of people. Their eyes are so empty. Their movements so particular. Like wind-up dolls, automatons, designed to emulate the behaviour of sentient beings. He feels as if he’s one of them – or was one of them, once. Beyond control or reason. Acting with pre-determined specificness, playing his role. And now something about him is broken, so he sits here, slowly fading from existence.</p>
<p>Garak. Why did he ask for Garak? What does Garak even <em>mean </em>to him? All they do is lie to each other, wear their masks, argue over inconsequentialities. All they do is <em>lie, </em>and it’s… it’s so <em>honest, </em>in some stupid, twisted way. Oh, he hates it. He hates that Garak tricks him into being himself. He supposes Garak probably hates him, too. Julian knows more about the enigmatic Elim Garak than anyone in the universe – Garak has said as much himself – and that must make him <em>loathsome. </em></p>
<p><em>There’s not a man in this universe, my dear doctor, who manages to get under my skin with your ease. </em>Julian had just made some clever, insightful comment about literature or something, he could remember.</p>
<p>“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” he’d asked.</p>
<p>“An achievement,” Garak clarified. “It’s quite unnerving of a gift, on the <em>rare</em> occasion that it appears.”</p>
<p>They’d been having lunch, enjoying the relative peace of that now distant neutral territory between the implant and the Gamma Quadrant, and Tain, and Julian was feeling proud of himself. He’d surprised Garak, and he’d made him smile, and that was a victory to be celebrated. “Then I’ll try to be less astute, next time,” he replied, attempting to repress a grin. He was trying to play it cool.</p>
<p>“Oh, nothing like that, please,” Garak said. “I shall simply need to take more care in avoiding your…”</p>
<p>“My…?”</p>
<p>“Your <em>charm, </em>Doctor. You’re unfortunately brimming with it.”</p>
<p>Julian gets a sudden feeling he might’ve missed something there, missed something <em>everywhere, </em>but he can’t quite put his finger on it. <em>Charm. </em>What <em>is</em> charm, when it’s at home? Not a quality <em>he’s </em>ever possessed. Not awkward, social slip-up haunted Julian Bashir, with his humiliating litany of past diplomatic errors. Maybe it would’ve ruined the game, taken the fun out of it all. But he wishes Garak had explained it in a way he could understand.</p>
<p>“Doctor.”</p>
<p>“M’not charming, <em>Garak,” </em>he objects, fingers tracing circles in the cool surface before him. Which is the bar, in Quark’s. Of course.</p>
<p>“In this state, I must agree,” comes the faintly amused, ever so slightly sharp remark from to his right. Two pairs of blue eyes stare back at him when he sits up, swinging a bit too far in the other direction and having to grab hold of the counter to keep himself from falling. Jadzia brushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear and frowns again. “Garak’s here, Julian,” she says, annunciating each word like she thinks he can’t hear. Then, turning to the man beside her, “I’ll leave him with you. Call me if anything happens.”</p>
<p>“Not to worry, Commander,” Garak says. “The dear doctor is in safe hands.”</p>
<p>Julian watches the back of Jadzia’s retreating head until it’s out of sight, not wanting to look at Garak. He’s ashamed, now. This is all ridiculous beyond words – again, almost funny, if not for the whole situation of the terminal illness set to bring a sudden and painful end to his pathetic life.</p>
<p>“I understand you asked for me, Doctor,” Garak says. He does not sit down. Julian squints to see his tunic better – it’s blue, of all colours, though such a dark blue in the low light of Quark’s it’s mostly indistinguishable from black. There are some patterns in the cloth – a turquoise kind of shade – stitches that seem to shine in the light coming from behind the bar. Julian almost wants to reach out and touch the fabric, to feel its smooth simplicity beneath his fingers.</p>
<p>“Didn’t ask,” he replies.</p>
<p>Garak eyes the empty kanar glass resting further down the counter. “Partaking in a little of Cardassian culture tonight?”</p>
<p>“It’s disgusting,” Julian complains, trying to sit up straighter and failing. In his head, a fight seems to be breaking out between his overwhelming shame and an odd sense of elation, a flicker of animalistic joy that grows beneath Garak’s gaze. “I don’t… I don’t understand how you can <em>bear </em>it, Garak, it’s- I’ve never tasted anything so… so…”</p>
<p>“Hm, well,” Garak says, “we can’t all expect to have unmatched taste, can we?”</p>
<p><em>Do you mean me, or you? </em>A thought occurs to him – a vaguely recalled parallel that makes him laugh, though the mirth sounds hollow. Tragic irony, or something. He bends over the bar, struggling to catch his breath as childish giggles burst out. <em>This </em>is actually funny. It’s the mere… coincidence of it all.</p>
<p>“Come, Doctor,” Garak sighs, taking a step towards him. “This… <em>performance </em>is most unlike you.”</p>
<p>“Fine, fine,” he says, trying to repress his laughter, which is verging close to manic tears at this point. “Garak, I-” He goes to stand up and stumbles right away, falling through space as his feet find the floor is not exactly where he imagined it to be. Someone catches him just before he lands on top of an unoccupied table – one arm around his chest, the other gripping the back of his uniform collar and righting him. Garak is has a strange strength about him. It’s easy to forget what he really is, on the inside, beneath his finely crafted clothes. Swaying on his feet, Julian raises his head to find Garak’s eyes with his own.</p>
<p>“Oh, hello, Garak,” he says, leaning into the supporting touch. “How- how <em>are </em>you?”</p>
<p>“I take it that was <em>not</em> your first glass of kanar,” Garak comments. “I’m quite well, as it happens.”</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Julian replies. “I’m…” He trails off before he lets himself finish, thinking better of it. “I’m miserable.”</p>
<p>If his announcement takes Garak by surprise, he doesn’t show it. Then again, Garak so seldom shows his true emotions on his face. You have to watch so carefully just to make out the smallest hint of inner feeling, the specks of honesty that Julian treasures like precious jewels, irreplaceable. Garak seems to be watching him with curiosity, as if he’s not quite sure what his human companion is about to do.</p>
<p>“Is there anything that might alleviate this misery of yours?” Garak asks, too politely. Why won’t he talk to Julian like he used to, so forward and alluring, like he was trying to snatch something treasured from right beneath his nose?</p>
<p>Julian crumples a little. The answer is on the tip of his tongue, obscured by a brain fog as thick as kanar. If he could only just… “Home,” he mumbles into Garak’s shoulder. “I want to go home.”</p>
<p>“To Earth, you mean? I’m afraid that might not be possible, Doctor.”</p>
<p>“What?” His brow creases as he tries to make sense of Garak’s words. “N-no? No, why in the world would I want to…?”</p>
<p>Garak forces him to stand on his own two feet then, letting go. When Julian tries to lean back into the reassuring hold, he takes a step away, maintaining the space between. Julian wants to protest, but he can’t seem to find the words. With the messiness of his head, he can’t tell whether Garak is being <em>unusually</em> cold with him or not, either. Maybe it’s all in his mind. But Garak seems so far away, and all he wants is to step closer again, wear that Cardassian shield against the world.</p>
<p>“Perhaps your quarters, for now,” Garak suggests, gripping his arm and leading him across Quark’s. It must be much later than he’d realised, because the Promenade beyond the bar is dark and silent, and the further they get from Quark’s, the more the darkness and silence grows. He turns his cheek to look up at Garak, and for the briefest moment, Garak looks at him. In the low light of the Promenade at night, he seems sort of… mystical. There was something in his eyes just now, an unguarded expression of emotion he didn’t have the time or presence of mind to read when he had the chance.</p>
<p>“Do you <em>know</em> where I live, Garak?” he asks, stumbling as they enter the turbolift, doors closing to shut out the last of the Quark’s racket. “You… you <em>do, </em>don’t you?” he says suddenly. “Because you-” Another fit of rather hopeless, lonely laughter breaks out of him. “You broke into my quarters. Do you remember? I remember. You walked on in while I was asleep, just like that.”</p>
<p>“Not without good reason, Doctor,” Garak points out.</p>
<p>“Well, couldn’t you have knocked?”</p>
<p>Garak says nothing. A moment later, the turbolift comes to a steady halt. Julian feels the hand – cool and precise and delicate – coming to rest against his shoulder once more, guiding him. He freezes.</p>
<p>“Oh.” It’s more of an oh, than an <em>oh </em>or an <em>oh my God </em>or anything else. There’s no awe or wonder, no sudden shock. Just Julian, standing there, with Garak’s hand on his shoulder, and the suffocating silence of Deep Space 9 closing in around them. The realisation is heavy. Like a weight tied to his ankles, dragging him down to the bottom of the sea.</p>
<p>“Is something the matter?”</p>
<p>He supposes it all makes sense, really. It’s hard to say how he didn’t notice it before – perhaps he was always just too preoccupied, or Garak was so beyond the <em>usual</em> sphere that his higher levels of thought simply passed it all by. Thinking back through his slurred mind, he tries to pick a point, a day, a lunch. In the shadows of his head, those memories are so sharp and bright they hurt to think of. He knows he’s misremembering, but the smiles are haunting in their absence. As if burned, he pulls away from the hand holding him, falling back against the stationary turbolift’s wall.</p>
<p>“My dear doctor, if you <em>are </em>ill, perhaps a trip to the Infirmary-”</p>
<p>“No! No, it’s…” His hands are shaking. “Not my room, please.” If they go there, Garak will see inside, and he’ll know the truth. Emotions might be easy enough to hide, but medical equipment is not. And then Julian will say something stupid, something so astronomically stupid that he’ll spend his last days alive in heartbreak as well as terrible pain and misery.</p>
<p>This is typical, to be honest. In another not-actually-so-funny way, it’s the most Julian Bashir kind of thing he can think of. He might’ve even laughed, if the stab of anxiety wasn’t so immediate and sickening, cutting right to his core. <em>My head is a nightmare. </em>It always was. For all his parents’ tasteless effort, they couldn’t save him. Nature versus nurture. It’s the same question every troubled psychologist and hack philosopher comes back to in their time. Julian stares at Garak, cowering. Two opposites converge to make one being – a desire to run, a desire to become close. And for all his scientific intelligence, the mind of the stupidest and most useless man that Julian Bashir has ever known.</p>
<p>Garak sighs, making no move to touch him again. He looks tired. Julian wonders whether Jadzia had to wake him up to come to rescue Julian. He wonders what Garak does when he’s out of his life. “Very well, you may sleep on the chair in my quarters, if you must. I believe you’ve managed to do so with not too much discomfort before.”</p>
<p>“All right,” he whispers. “I’m… tired.”</p>
<p>“I would imagine so.” Garak’s nostrils flare – a small sign of frustration. At what, though, Julian can’t quite tell. He hopes it isn’t directed at him. <em>Please don’t hate me. I couldn’t take it if you hated me. </em></p>
<p>This is what he was missing, then. He wishes he had never found out.</p>
<p>He wishes that he had been brave enough to just die alone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he wakes, Garak’s small living room is silent and empty. He can tell without looking that Garak is gone. He wonders when he got so good at noticing his Cardassian tailor’s presence, when Garak became such a constant in his life that his absence is like a sixth sense. He wonders when he was stupid enough to let the infatuation sink in like that, and why he didn’t notice it sooner. At least before he had less than a week to live.</p>
<p>He feels like death today. Not surprising.</p>
<p>There’s a note left for him on the table – written with paper and ink in a precise, decorative hand that could only be Garak’s. He picks it up and slips it into his pocket without reading it. The last thing he wants to know is what Garak thinks of his <em>performance </em>last night. Some of the details are blurred. <em>He must have seen it. </em>The thought is a painful twist in the back of his mind, the bottom of his heart. <em>He knows you too well. He must have seen. </em>The piece of paper in his pocket crackles as he limps down the corridor, going nowhere in particular.</p>
<p>He spends the day in a haze, sitting on a tucked-away bench on the Promenade, pretending to read a report on his PADD. It’s easier to disassociate and feel nothing much at all, than to be present and in pain. His body is a distant machine, slowly collapsing in on itself, broken. All that’s left is the ache in his chest, a lingering dream, a question about parallel worlds where Julian Bashir was not such a fool and somewhere on Deep Space 9 there were shared quarters with a teddy bear and a tailoring kit sitting side by side on a shelf.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>This is going to be my final personal log. I don’t think there’s much use in apologising now, so I won’t bother. Though I… I am sorry. [A pause, no more than a few forgotten moments, but significant.] So goodbye, I suppose.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I feel a bit like one of those early astronauts who sacrificed their lives to explore the galaxy, sailing off in ships on one-way trips into God knows where. At least they chose to be there, though, doing something good for the future of humanity and all that. It’s hard to imagine how they must’ve felt, knowing they’d never see another living person again. That their messages would only reach home long after they were dead. It’s dark stuff, you know. They were braver than I ever could’ve been. </em>
</p>
<p><em>I’m not going to </em>pretend <em>I want to die. I don’t want to die. But I guess I don’t want to live like this, either, so it evens out. I… I really do love you. All of you, I mean. I hope that makes up for some of it.</em></p>
<p><em>Please don’t let them publish my prion research before it’s finished. You know what doctors are like – they’d tear it apart just for the document margin being a millimetre too far to the right. Try contacting Elizabeth Lense – she serves on the </em>Lexington. <em>We’ve talked about it a lot. I’d send her a message myself, but…</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Anyway, Bashir out. For the last time in this universe, at least.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He expected to feel afraid, walking back from the Infirmary with the weight of the hypospray in his hand, expected a passer-by to realise somehow, expose him before the entirety of Deep Space 9. But nobody even looks his way as he goes, moving slowly to steady his limp and keep himself upright. The pain is nearly unbearable – it feels like he’s being carved up from the inside out, spitting blood across the Promenade and leaving permanent stains in the carpet. His vision is fogged up from the agony, and he’s glad he spent most of the day resting. Even after hours of doing nothing at all, his body is close to total collapse.</p><p>The time is just past 1800 hours. The command team usually has dinner together in Sisko’s quarters this time every week. He’s already excused himself, passing on the message for the captain to Jake when they ran into each other on the Promenade that he wouldn't be able to come. Catching Jake’s unassuming smile, he knew he should feel guilty. That was the point, wasn’t it? Feeling guilty, being selfish. But he just felt tired, and in pain.</p><p>This is the better way, right? The <em>easier</em> way. The way a part of him has wanted for years and years, some childhood demon rearing its head to tear away flesh and bone, a reckoning. He carefully avoids going anywhere near Garak’s shop on his way, trying not to think of any of that. If he gets too close, he’ll give in. He’ll say something. And he can’t.</p><p>He needs resolution just now. Cold acceptance.</p><p>100ccs of triptacederine. He won’t need it all, but he filled the hypo up completely in the Infirmary, just to be sure. The only thing that could be worse than succeeding would be failing. <em>This is the better way. </em>It’s an empty reminder. Whether he believes it or not, they’re the words that guide his way into the quiet claustrophobia of a turbolift, going down to crew quarters. He just has to close off his mind and it will all be okay. Soon he won’t have to think anything at all.</p><p>Something painful twists in his chest as he turns into his hallway, and it’s not from the disease. A deep-seated twinge of agonised disgust, more memory than reality. The nausea is starting to grow again – a sickening wave rising to the surface, making him sway on his feet. He stumbles into his quarters in a daze and falls down on the nearest sofa, unfurling a shaking hand to reveal the hypo. It looks so… innocuous. The sort of everyday thing one would find in an Infirmary, only at ten times the dose. His breath catches. <em>Keep it together, Julian. Just keep it together. Just… just do it. Do it now. Stop overthinking it just do it. Won’t even hurt just do it-</em></p><p>And then what? The others will be distracted by whatever incredible meal Sisko has prepared tonight, they probably won’t even give him a second thought, at least not until late into the night. But Jadzia or Miles might stop by. They would do that kind of thing. Or maybe Garak would- Maybe Garak…</p><p>
  <em>Don’t think. Just do it.</em>
</p><p>He’s going to be sick.</p><p>In a jerky, uncontrolled flurry of movement, he throws the hypo across the room as if it burned to touch. He hears the <em>crack </em>as it comes into contact with the far wall. The ghostly, cold weight of it remains in his hand. The horror is rising. He scrambles back off the sofa, overcome with the sudden compulsion to scream or run or do anything at all, anything but stay still in the panicked storm beginning to surround him. The room is too quiet, too small, and it’s all crushing him, crushing him under the weight of terror and disgust.</p><p>“What is <em>wrong </em>with you?” he moans, burying his face in a sapphire blue pillow and repressing the desire to yell out the words for the entire station to hear. “What the <em>hell </em>is wrong with you?” His voice breaks off into gasping sobs, another wave of nausea hitting as he raises his hand and searches it desperately for puncture marks he knows are not there, terrified he might have injected himself by mistake. It all falls down into a whirlpool of <em>what is wrong with me I hate my head get me out of this body get me out of this brain I can’t breathe I wish I was never born at all </em>that suffocates him, aching like the illness slowly stripping away his defences and leaving Julian Bashir a walking corpse with nothing to share but <em>please forgive me.</em></p><p>He can’t sit still. It’s almost like his body is trying to escape from inside itself, shuddering as he half-convulses with everything trying to burst out at once, reacting to a sort of horrible panic that makes him want to shatter glass or throw up or set this whole room on fire and choke on the smog.</p><p>“Not like this,” he whispers. “I want… just… <em>not like this.”</em> For the first time, it brings tears to his eyes. He doesn’t usually cry at anything. He’s too… worn-down of a person for that. Now the tears stream down his cheeks, cutting hot lines in the skin, splashing onto the carpet he crouches over as he desperately tries to get oxygen into his constricting lungs. He feels like it was an alien wearing his clothes just here before, holding that hypospray, thinking those thoughts.</p><p><em>Who am I? </em>Doctor Julian Bashir. Chief Medical Officer, Deep Space 9. One of the youngest Carrington Award nominees in history, among other achievements. The time is… His eyes search the room anxiously, picking out a chronometer by the door. The time is 1817 hours. These are his quarters, his home, and he is breathing and he <em>is </em>alive and this is… this is…</p><p>A mess. This is a mess.</p><p>He’s not sure how long he cries.</p><p>There’s a ring at the door. He freezes, clamping a hand over his mouth to keep in the embarrassing whimpers. Just pretend he’s not home, simple enough. They’ll go away.</p><p>The door chime rings again and somebody thumps with their fist, not with as much strength as Jadzia or Miles or any of the others might have had, but easy enough to hear. <em>One of the nurses? A stranger?</em></p><p>“Julian!” someone calls. “Julian, I know you’re there! Let me in!”</p><p>Oh. Leeta.</p><p>“Julian, I still know your emergency entry command codes, so you’d better open this door before I do!”</p><p>He doesn’t know what else he can possibly do. “C-come,” he mutters, dragging his knees up to his chest and trying to hide his face. He knows what he must look like. He knows what his <em>room </em>must look like, with the mounds of medical equipment and random documents lying around. And he just can’t bear to meet the gentle darkness of her eyes as she enters, the sheer skirt of her dabo outfit brushing against the carpeted floor.</p><p>“Oh, Julie,” she murmurs as she approaches his cowering place by the foot of the sofa. “What happened to you?”</p><p>He starts to cry again. He did try not to.</p><p>A moment later, he feels a slim arm come around his shoulders, gently tugging him in. “I came to see how you were because you seemed so in Quark’s upset yesterday,” Leeta says quietly. “Can you… tell me what’s wrong?”</p><p>“I… I don’t know where to begin, exactly,” he replies, sniffing and wiping away tears on his already soaked through sleeves. “And I’d rather not hurt you, or… anyone else.”</p><p>“Tell me,” Leeta insists, in that slightly commanding voice she keeps the dabo tables running smoothly with, and it draws the truth out of Julian like poison from a wound.</p><p>“I’m dying,” he admits. It’s only a whisper. Somehow, he wasn’t quite certain it was true, until now.</p><p>“…Oh.”</p><p>“I’ve got a- a degenerative disease, I picked it up on the <em>Defiant</em>’s last mission. Not contagious but it is… lethal. The past few days I’ve been trying to work out what I was supposed to do because I <em>knew </em>I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Sisko or the others and… and then I just tried to make it go away quickly. Or I was going to try but then I couldn’t, because I kept thinking about everyone else and I just… I’m lost, Leeta. I really am.” He stifles another sob. “I’m <em>sorry.” </em></p><p>“It’s okay, Julie, it’s okay,” she says, drawing her arm tighter around him, holding his head with her other hand. “I’m… I’m glad you told me. When you say you couldn’t do it-”</p><p>“I mean I didn’t,” he answers. “I don’t think I was ever going to, I just thought…”</p><p>“All right, so long as you’re okay.”</p><p>He lets out a teary laugh. “If being on the verge of death from an incurable disease counts as okay.”</p><p>“You really are…?”</p><p>“Dying, yes.”</p><p>She takes in a slow, deep breath, almost reassuring in its certainty. “And you haven’t told anyone?”</p><p>“No, I just… couldn’t seem to find the right words.” Feeling Leeta’s faint smile against the top of his head, he allows his panic to float away, a cloud carried on the wind. She seems to be taking it well. But then, Leeta came from the same place the other Bajorans did. Throughout it all, she remained unfalteringly determined and kind. He <em>has </em>missed her since they broke up. If he wasn’t dying, he might ask if they could stay best friends, even if she’s with Rom and he’s with… somebody else.</p><p>“It’s not my place to tell you what you should do,” Leeta says, “but I think you should tell the others, now that I know – at least Miles and Jadzia. You don’t deserve to… to <em>die </em>holed up in here, alone. <em>Nobody </em>deserves that.”</p><p>“You may be right,” he replies, extracting himself from her arms and willing the tears away. “Leeta, since you’re here, I want to tell you I’m… sorry.”</p><p>She frowns, brushing a few loose strands of red hair from her eyes. “About what?”</p><p>“Well, I wasn’t the best boyfriend, I don’t think, while we were together.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>Julie.” </em>She laughs, maybe a little sadly, and leans over to clutch his face between her hands. “I was <em>happy </em>with you, I really was. I think we could just both see it wasn’t going to work out long-term, you know? I don’t <em>regret </em>us being together.” <em>You should, </em>is the thought that flickers through the back of his brain. <em>You should regret it, because if you’d never come up to me in Quark’s that day, you wouldn’t be sad now. </em>“It’s hard,” Leeta continues, smiling, “when one of you is in love with somebody else.”</p><p>“If you mean you and Rom-”</p><p>“I mean you, Julian. And Garak.” She scans his face, gauging a reaction. He wonders when she figured it out, and how. It seems that people always notice these things about him before he does. “I’m not wrong, am I?” she asks.</p><p>“No. I don’t think so. You’re very… perceptive, Leeta.” It’s hard not to laugh, even though most of his instincts are still telling him to start crying again and never stop. “I only sort of worked it out recently myself. Me and Garak.”</p><p>“It <em>is </em>my job to know these kinds of things,” she points out. “There’s a reason Quark will be sorry to see me go, someday.” He chuckles again and they fall into silence, Leeta sitting back to lean into his side, gripping his hand tightly and not letting go. “You haven’t said anything to him, though? Garak, I mean.”</p><p>Julian shrugs. “It’s like I said, I only just realised how I felt. And now it’s too late. Besides, I… I don’t think he would feel the same.”</p><p> Leeta doesn’t reply right away, biting her lip.</p><p>“You don’t agree.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she answers. “But that’s not the most important thing right now, is it? You are. I know you said you’re not well, but you do look awfully sick. Is there anything you can give yourself?”</p><p>“Er… yes, I suppose so.”</p><p>“Then you should. It’s not right to be in pain when you don’t have to be.” <em>That’s what I thought, too. I just didn’t quite have it the right way around. </em>He’s not sure whether he should be relieved by the knowledge that hypo was never making its way into his neck, or whether it just makes him feel weak and ashamed. Leeta stands then, catching sight of something on the other side of the room. He drags himself up by the arm of the sofa, watching her crouch down by the far wall and pick up a mangled hypo with delicate fingers</p><p>“Is this it, Julie?” she asks, so calmly she might’ve been talking about a lost safety pin.</p><p>“Yes,” he replies. “Be careful.” It looks like most of the medicine has seeped out into the carpet, anyway.</p><p>“I will be. Is it okay with you for me to throw it away?”</p><p>He nods, turning away and hobbling over to his little med station on the dining table to avoid looking at it any longer. It takes a few moments to steady himself, to look down at the medications and equipment before him with enough presence of mind. Painkillers, some meds to jumpstart his organs into working properly even when his body doesn’t want them to. Simple. He’ll feel better in no time. <em>But I won’t be any less dead. </em>He has to put that out of his mind, at least for now. He thinks of Leeta’s endless charming optimism and does his very best to smile. The hypo he gives himself is instant relief and he almost wonders whether some part of him wanted to suffer, before.</p><p>“Do you mind if we go to my room for a minute?” she asks. “There’s something I want to get, but it can wait. I don’t want to leave you alone.”</p><p><em>In case I try something stupid, probably. </em>He knows he won’t, but he’s afraid of being by himself. Anything but that silence and the words burning inside his brain. “Of course, just give me a minute to uh… make myself presentable.” He sniffs, rubbing his eyes. It’s probably obvious to anyone that he’s been sobbing his heart out, but it doesn’t matter much. He has to tell them anyway, now. <em>I’m not alone. </em>By accident, maybe, but it still counts. Not alone. “What are we getting?”</p><p>“Your toy, the uh… teddy bear.”</p><p>“Kukalaka.”</p><p>She nods, showing a small smile. “He’s still in my room. I think… I think he could use a hug from you right now.”</p><p>“Leeta?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“If and when I do, well, <em>die,” </em>he says, “will you take care of Kukalaka for me? I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”</p><p>She takes his hand gently in her own as they step out into the cool corridor, shadowed by calming darkness and the strange beauty of a second Bajor built onto metal Cardassian bones. “Of course, Julie. <em>If.” </em>It’s a word he hadn’t realised he was waiting to hear ever since the moment he sat in front of that Infirmary computer and saw death staring back at him in the glass.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“You’re <em>kidding.”</em></p><p>“I don’t believe this, Julian. I really just don’t believe this.”</p><p>“Chief, Major, please,” Sisko sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Let’s try to be constructive.”</p><p>Julian keeps his eyes on the ground, trying to focus on other things – the sweet, smoky scent of whatever the captain was grilling for command team dinner tonight, the distant whir of the air conditioning system he can always seem to hear, thanks to his enhanced senses. “No, they’re right,” he says. “I should have told someone the moment I found out.”</p><p>“That’s right, you should have,” Sisko agrees with a grimace. “But it’s understandable why you didn’t.”</p><p>“You didn’t want us to get hurt,” Jadzia says quietly, reaching over to rest a gentle hand on his knee. She’s been very quiet since they came in and Leeta repeated what Julian had told her in his moment of weakness, excluding some of the darker details.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, for what feels like the twentieth time. It all feels a bit like a court-martial. Of the entire command team plus Jake, only Odo is absent, apparently off dealing with some drama in Quark’s. It’s exactly what he was afraid of, in a lot of ways. No one is crying, at least, though Jadzia does look a little-teary eyed, and Kira’s expression is pained.</p><p>“Jabara,” Sisko says, turning around. “Have you finished looking through the doctor’s records?”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” she replies, coming over to join them with a PADD in her hand.</p><p>“And do you agree with his… conclusions?”</p><p>“Well…” Naj throws him a tense look. “He was right about the diagnosis. With the degeneration developing at this rate, left to run its course I would say Doctor Bashir has a week left, at the most.”</p><p>Julian feels Leeta’s hand slide down over his shoulder. He forgot she was standing there. With her free arm, she cradles Kukalaka, the russet bear tucked up under her chin as though in soothing its lifeless body, she could calm Julian.</p><p>“You said, left to run its course,” Sisko remarks. “Does that mean there <em>is</em> a treatment?”</p><p>“No,” Julian says, at the exact same moment that Naj nods and answers, “yes, I believe so.”</p><p>“Some clarification might be nice,” Kira mutters. She stands by the mantlepiece with her arms folded, frowning at the floor. The more he looks at her the more he just wants to apologise again, over and over until it all goes away, so he averts his eyes.</p><p>“The possible therapies would never work,” he explains before Naj can give them too much false hope. “My body wouldn’t be able to cope with the severity of the treatments, especially… especially not now.”</p><p>Naj offers the PADD out to Sisko. “With all due respect, sir,” she says, “there’s no way to determine that without making a genuine attempt at recovery. The simulations aren’t brilliant, but they aren’t conclusive either. I would recommend, if the doctor is willing, a full cell therapy process. It may be capable of preventing any further degeneration of his system. But we have to act soon before his organs are damaged beyond our ability to repair. As I said, if he doesn’t object.”</p><p>“He bloody well won’t,” Miles says loudly.</p><p>“That’s not up to us,” Sisko tells him. “It’s well within Julian’s rights to refuse treatment.”</p><p><em>But who on God’s awful earth would do that? </em>It’s the question at the front of all of their minds, he can tell – they’re not doctors, perhaps they can’t quite understand why someone would say no beyond a heroic sacrifice like that of Vedek Bareil. What’s the point? When Julian is dying anyway, what’s the point of wasting medical supplies, wasting people’s hope, on a lost cause?</p><p>What a harrowing thought to have. Does he want to die so badly?</p><p>“It won’t work,” he repeats. It has to be true – irrevocably true – or else he’ll have hope again, and he’ll lose hope again, and he doesn’t think he could survive it.</p><p>“Julian,” Jadzia says, leaning over the coffee table towards him. “Is it true you could survive?”</p><p>There are numbers in his brain, inhuman calculations, percentage chances that flail about as they try to take into every variable and collapse under the weight of it. “Yes, technically, but the chances of recovery are so infinitesimal-”</p><p>“If you were one of your patients,” Jadzia interrupts, “even if you had those same odds… would you give up on yourself? Would you just let yourself die because the chance of failure was too great?”</p><p>He can sense himself being trapped, and it terrifies him. “It’s not the same.”</p><p>“Isn’t it?” she asks, voice taking on a harder tone. “Because I think it is. I know you, Julian, and you’d never just give up on someone like that, even with only the tiniest chance that they <em>might </em>survive. You’d do everything you could, fight tooth and nail, to keep that person alive. So why won’t you do the same for yourself?”</p><p><em>Because my life is not worth the same. </em>There’s the root of the matter, in the end. <em>I do want to live. I’m just not sure how much I want it. And I’m so tired. </em>The medication he took before they left his quarters has kicked in, numbing his pain, but the exhaustion remains. It seems to pervade every part of his consciousness. He can hardly keep his head up.</p><p>“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” Sisko says, handing the PADD back to Jabara.</p><p>But of course, the longer he mulls it over, the smaller that already minuscule chance of survival will become. It’s simple logic. He can feel them all watching him – Sisko, Jadzia, Miles, Leeta, Jake in the corner with a blank expression on his face. He wishes he could hold Kukalaka now, but he can’t seem to make his limbs move the right way to turn around and take him from Leeta’s arms. The pressure is mounting again. Julian breathes in deep, allows every thought in his mind to drift away like steam from hot water in the cool air, wisps that dance momentarily before his eyes before disappearing without a sting.</p><p>“I don’t know how to begin,” he admits. How to face that whole… mess of an idea. How to become Julian Bashir – the sick one, the dying one – in the watchful eyes of the world.</p><p>“It’s fairly simple, sir,” Naj says. “You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.” Aside from maybe dying, of course.</p><p>“All right, Jabara, if the doctor agrees I want you to have the Infirmary set up to admit him as soon as possible,” Sisko orders. “No sense in wasting any more time.”</p><p>“We can let him in change of shift tomorrow morning,” she suggests. “That would be plenty of time for the other nurses to organise everything, make sure the treatments are suited to his particular condition. All I need is an okay from him.”</p><p>They all turn his way again. This time, Julian feels, not quite above, but to the side of it all. Beyond the burn of that uncomfortable attention, capable of higher, clearer thought. “Okay,” he says, in a voice so small and fragile it sounds like that of a child’s, but there nonetheless. Naj nods and makes for the door,</p><p>“You’ll make it, Julian,” Miles tells him. “I know you will.” From across the room, he hears a murmured agreement from the otherwise preoccupied Jake.</p><p>Their confidence is touching. Julian only wishes he shared it.</p><p>“What are your chances?” Kira asks, and he prefers that just now. Blunt honesty, statistics and scientific facts.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he answers. “The odds are pretty stacked against me, I’m afraid to say.”</p><p>“You’ve never let that stop you before,” Jadzia says. He laughs, running a hand over his face and through his hair. She might have a point. Jadzia Dax usually does.</p><p>Sisko sighs and takes a seat on the one free chair, seeming drained. Julian doesn’t know how he does it. Chief Medical Officer has been hard enough, over the years. He can’t help wondering whether he would’ve ever had the grace, the command, for a captaincy. “Doctor, if you have anyone you’d like to get in contact with – any family, friends – that can be arranged,” he says. With a nod towards Leeta, he adds, “I’m glad you decided not to go through this alone, but we can always use more support.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Julian agrees. “There is uh, somebody I’d like to talk to. Now, if that’s okay.”</p><p>“Do you need me to organise a subspace transmission for you?”</p><p>“No,” he replies. “No, he’s on the station. Do you mind if I go? I just need to… sort some things out.”</p><p>There is no need to ask who Julian means. Not after all these ridiculous years of blindness, of him somehow missing the small but significant detail that he’s been was absolutely and horribly in love with that impossible man for a very long time. Maybe it was the fact that he was Julian’s first new friend on Deep Space 9. He became so… so intertwined with every corridor, every table and chair and holosuite program, that Julian couldn’t notice the deviations, where familiarity merged into something more. And when the Dominion simulation had shown him the station, shown him home, it had shown him an eccentric Cardassian tailor, ever so slightly off in the cadence with which he spoke.</p><p>“I want you to get some rest afterwards,” Sisko instructs, seconded by a mutter of something about needing his strength from Kira. “Don’t stay up all night talking.”</p><p>He takes Kukalaka from Leeta as he goes, murmuring an apology about keeping her awake for so long. She only smiles and kisses him on the cheek, tells him not to worry. Jadzia offers to walk with him, but he knows he has to go alone.</p><p>It’d been years, before his alcohol-fuelled disaster of an evening, since he visited those rooms. There’d always been something off-limits about them, especially after the events that took place there all that time ago when Julian still felt sort of young and Garak still wore his skin with the curtains drawn, the walls built up high around. He doesn’t feel that way anymore. Perhaps because he understands, now.</p><p>He could leave it until morning.</p><p>He passes on by the door to his own quarters with more certainty than he’s known in a long time.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Garak, I know you’re in there!” he calls, knocking hard on the door again. This isn’t quite the dramatic tragedian’s entrance he had planned. Trust Garak to make things difficult, unknowingly or not. <em>Really, I’m the one who’s bloody dying. The least he could do would be open the damn door. </em>“Please, Garak, it’s important! I really need to-”</p><p>The door slides open abruptly, putting Julian face to face with those sharp blue eyes for the first time since his drama in Quark’s the other night. It’s so sudden and brings with it a wave of untouched affection that he finds himself lost for words. He can read anger beneath Garak’s otherwise neutral gaze. Part of him simply wants to turn and run away.</p><p>“Yes, Doctor?” Garak asks with a sting of sharpness. “How can I help you?”</p><p>“I need you- I- I mean, I need to <em>talk </em>to you,” he replies hurriedly, side-stepping Garak to enter the shadowy room without waiting for an invite. He can already sense his determination beginning to crumble, even though he’d walked up to Garak’s front door so <em>sure </em>this was what he wanted. “I’m er… sorry if it’s an inconvenient time,” he adds.</p><p>“It <em>is</em> rather late in the day for a house call, one would think,” Garak says. It’s not… it’s not <em>bitter, </em>exactly. It’s… “Is there a reason why you have <em>dragged</em> me out of bed at this ridiculous hour, Doctor, or not?”</p><p>Is he just imagining things, or is Garak upset with him? He scans back over the events of the night Garak rescued him from Quark’s, trying to remember whether he said anything offensive or unkind in his drunkenness, but he mostly just remembers being miserable. Was Garak angry he left without leaving a message, without stopping by the shop to say thank you? A frown tugs at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb your <em>beauty sleep,”</em> he says, digging his feet into the floor. <em>For God’s sake, don’t let this turn into another bickering match. Serious business, Julian. You have a terminal illness. </em>And it’s sort of amusing, put like that. Here he is, standing in Garak’s living room with Kukalaka tucked under his arm, in the middle of dying, while Garak stares at him like he’s just made an offensive jab about the décor. “I needed to speak with you.”</p><p>“Unrelated to the toy, I presume,” Garak comments with a faint haughtiness that sets Julian on edge.</p><p>“Are you really angry with a teddy bear right now?” he asks disbelievingly.</p><p>A sharp intake of breath. Garak’s eyes flash. “My dear doctor, I don’t have the faintest idea what you could mean.”</p><p>“Oh, drop the mystery, Garak,” he bites back. “Just tell me what it is about me being here right now that’s <em>clearly </em>such a problem for you. Or don’t. You know what? Don’t even bother – I can go. Who cares what <em>I </em>came here for, after all?”</p><p>“Something to do with the latest melodrama of your eclectic personal life, I’m sure,” Garak replies, speaking rather icily as he closes the door and makes for the far side of the room. Julian hobbles after him, beginning to feel a genuine sense of indignance. “How is that dear dabo girl of yours, by the way?” Garak adds. He picks up a PADD, poking at the screen as if Julian’s presence is a mere distraction, the same as a fly buzzing about a room.</p><p>“Her name is Leeta, which you know full well,” Julian snaps. “And she’s not <em>mine. </em>We… we broke up <em>weeks </em>ago, Garak.”</p><p>“Oho, did you?” Garak lets out a huff of laughter, still refusing to look at him. “Not to worry, Doctor. No need to spare my feelings – you two make a very fine couple, after all. In fact, I have some Bajoran-style wedding clothes that would suit you quite well, if you’d care to take a look.”</p><p>Julian struggles to find the words to best convey how utterly confused he feels. It isn’t doing much to help his headache. “Garak, I can’t tell what in the world you’re going on about! Leeta and I are <em>not </em>getting married, we’re just friends. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but-”</p><p>“Heard? Ha!” Garak’s tone is verging on hysterical, at least for him. Julian is starting to get an uncomfortable sense of one of the last times he was here, when Garak was the one dying, not him. Everything feels as though it’s spiralling out of control and he’s not quite sure what to say and he suddenly wonders whether he’s managed to wander into some kind of parallel universe. “It’s what I’ve seen, my <em>dear </em>doctor, that… that…”</p><p>“Well, what the hell <em>have </em>you seen, then?” he interrupts. At this rate, he’ll be dead before they even manage to get to the point of this conversation – whatever that is. <em>Could he have picked </em>any <em>other day to start being so cryptic again?</em></p><p>“There’s no need to be coy,” Garak says, smiling in a way that’s the opposite of sincere. “You and that lovely young woman have been parading about the station all evening. I would congratulate you, if I didn’t assume your reason for <em>abusing </em>my front door at this hour was a sign of some self-inflicted interruption to your romantic bliss.”</p><p>“You’re being ridiculous,” he replies bluntly. He is far too sick for this right now. “I <em>was</em> with Leeta tonight because we- because we’re <em>friends. </em>You know how friends like to hang out sometimes? I don’t have a clue where you picked up this idea that we’re still together, but we’re not. We’re friends. Like you and I… like we’re friends.” He’s not willing to venture more, not with Garak so incensed over nothing – never a good sign when it comes to him.</p><p>“Ah, yes,” Garak remarks, “we are <em>friends</em>, aren’t we? Such <em>good </em>friends.”</p><p>He sounds so bitter about it. <em>Does he not want us to be friends? </em>But that doesn’t make sense. Why would Garak offer to see him, offer to meet him, sneak into his holosuite sessions unannounced and uninvited, if he didn’t want them to be friends? It couldn’t all have been professional. It was more than that, it still is.</p><p>
  <em>More than friends?</em>
</p><p>It’s a ridiculous, insane sort of thought. The kind that usually flits through Julian’s head at the speed of a fleeing Cardassian vole, there one moment and gone the next. Except this one sticks. He sets Kukalaka down on the nearest armchair. The room is warm. He supposes Garak is a Cardassian. It would make sense for it to be hotter in here.</p><p>“It’s rather late, Doctor,” Garak says. “If you’ve nothing more to say, perhaps you ought to leave.”</p><p>And ouch, that stings. It’s far beyond the realm of Garak’s usual mock politeness, and beneath the kindly-meant suggestion, Julian thinks he can hear honesty. He raises his eyes to meet that sharp blue gaze, glinting with provocation, and shakes his head. “No. I don’t think I will.”</p><p>Garak takes a small step closer. “Won’t you?” he breathes, seeming enraptured. Surprised, maybe. Or impressed.</p><p>“No,” Julian affirms. “Though now, I have to ask… are you jealous of Leeta?” Perhaps it’s a risk. He supposes he’s dying anyway.</p><p>“My dear doctor, believe me, I have no desire to spend my days spinning dabo wheels and dealing with disruptive patrons in an establishment such as Quark’s,” Garak replies.</p><p><em>He never gives in, does he?</em> Julian forces himself not to smile because this <em>is </em>a serious topic <em>and </em>a serious night, but it’s hard. There’s something so… so endearing about Garak’s eternal ability to sidestep a question. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he says. “Are you jealous of Leeta and I spending time together? Are you… jealous of the idea of us being, well, a couple?”</p><p>“Your self-centeredness, Doctor, never fails to amaze me. I cannot imagine a <em>single </em>reason why I should be jealous, as you so eloquently put it, of whatever relationships you choose to pursue, romantic or otherwise.”</p><p>“Really?” Julian mutters, more to himself than Garak, who stands just a metre or two away with a now-unreadable expression on his face. The semantics are starting to build up in the form of a painful tension between Julian’s eyes. “I can think of one.”</p><p>“Which would be?” Now that, <em>that </em>sounds like a challenge.</p><p>Julian leans in a little, holds himself steady. There’s something about this moment he feels as though he’s sensed before, at other times, only here magnified to a sharper focus. It’s a temptation.</p><p>“Would you like me to give you a demonstration?” he asks.</p><p>Garak’s brow lifts, only by a fraction of an inch. The shudder of his breath is almost imperceptible – probably would be, to anyone without the enhancements to notice it. “By all means,” he says, maintaining an indifferent tone.</p><p>He hopes he’s not misinterpreting. It could make his possible last few days alive quite awkward. But then again, what’s a more Julian Bashir kind of way to go? He falls forward, takes Garak’s face between his hands with as much certainty as he can muster, and kisses him. He only gets about half a second to wonder whether he just made a very stupid choice.</p><p>No sooner than he presses his lips to Garak’s – at a slightly awkward angle, mostly because there’s a sharp desk corner between them and he’s also not a hundred percent sure in his body’s ability not to just collapse at any given moment – strong hands are coming up to grip his shoulders, dragging him like this is the most obvious thing in the world. Julian can’t hold back an embarrassing squeak as Garak manhandles him into protective position, almost as if to defend him from the outside world. He can hear ringing in his ears when Garak kisses him with more passion than <em>he </em>could quite manage in his sickened state, sliding cool, scaled fingers up over the back of neck to grip his hair. It takes him so much by surprise that for a brief interlude, he completely forgets what he’s doing. He’s not sure what he was expecting. Not… this.</p><p>He feels the back of his thighs hit the edge of Garak’s desk, until this moment organised to perfection with sketches neatly stacked and thread samples laid out by colour in careful lines, but Garak doesn’t seem to mind. Julian is too drained to continue their argument – he lets Garak kiss him like there’s no tomorrow, leans into the contact as much as he can, sends a silent thank you to the Prophets or whoever else is out there that he’s not going to face death in the throes of utter humiliation. His frustration melts away into desperation, probably not helped by the shadow of imminent death on the horizon, and he finds himself determined to make up for lost time. He can process the <em>whys </em>and <em>why nows </em>of Garak kissing him later. This is too important.</p><p>Everywhere Garak touches him feels like it’s on fire, hot and uncontrolled. He can’t remember the last time he felt like this. Perhaps never. He tries to return the attention as best he can, but Garak seems more interesting in having <em>him, </em>in having every patch of skin bared by his modest Starfleet uniform, every desperate breath and twitch that his ministrations procure. Julian is helpless in the face of it. He can’t recall how he managed to get so… <em>under </em>Garak. He <em>is </em>taller, after all. But Garak suddenly seems as if he fills the entire room, defines Julian’s universe in every sense of the word, matches him in every way. <em>An equal. </em>It isn’t overpowering. Garak kisses him and it feels like a kind of equilibrium. A balance. It grounds him as nothing has since the return from the Gamma Quadrant, since the moment he looked at that computer screen and was reminded of impermanence.</p><p><em>Dying, remember, Julian. Most likely dying. </em>His heart must be winning out tonight. He can’t bring himself to care.</p><p>“Not jealous at all, hm?” he murmurs, pulling away to free the arm caught between him and the desk and use the opportunity to examine Garak from this new angle.</p><p>“Hardly,” Garak replies. He appears like he’s having trouble maintaining his usual detached composure. “I never doubted you, Doctor.”</p><p>Julian pretends to look offended. “Oh, didn’t you? Always knew I’d just come <em>crawling </em>through your front door one day, begging for it?”</p><p>A small smile twitches at the corner of Garak’s mouth. “Nothing so crude. You came in on two feet if I remember correctly. And I’ve yet to hear any <em>begging, </em>as you put it with such style.”</p><p>“And you won’t,” he promises, trying to ignore the creeping desire urging him to get closer, to find that place where he knows his resolve will crack in no time at all. Garak is an insistent sort of person to be in love with. <em>Love, that’s right. </em>Perhaps years ago, it could’ve been another of Julian’s outwardly ill-advised infatuations, an obsession he could move past with time and laugh at further down the road. This one simmered too long, went too long unacknowledged, and with the assumption that Garak feels at least a drop of the same untenable affection, it feels as permanent as stone. No, more than that – as permanent as atoms, changing form with the breaks and bends of the universe, but never losing themselves entirely.</p><p>“You have no comprehension, my dear,” Garak remarks, hand falling from Julian’s hair to follow the lines of his face, skimming his features with a touch so light it’s almost torturous, “of the <em>temptation </em>you present.”</p><p>“Oh, I think I know a little,” he replies. “I just didn’t know that er, <em>you </em>were tempted, exactly. Or that I would want you to be.”</p><p>“And now you have made this discovery, what do you intend to do with it?”</p><p>Julian shrugs, affecting a vague disinterest. “I’m not sure. Certainly,” he says, flashing a challenge in his smile as he meets Garak’s eyes again, “not any begging.”</p><p>“No? We may have to investigate that hypothesis of yours, Doctor.” Garak’s other hand curls around his hip, fingers digging in through the fabric of his uniform. Julian’s breath catches in his chest and stays there. He’s not quite as confident on the inside as he’d like Garak to believed, and he’s pretty sure that must be obvious. They’re making up for missed chances here.</p><p>He barely contains the gasp that rises up with the feeling of Garak’s mouth finding his neck, animalistic to a disconcerting degree and taking up all his headspace, leaving no room for rational thought. His feet may as well be off the ground completely, for all the good his legs are doing at keeping him upright just now. Teeth scrape the delicate skin of his throat and he swears under his breath, gripping harder at the folds of Garak’s tunic, at his cool scales and smooth hair.</p><p>“Not. Begging,” he insists.</p><p>Those hands slide down from his hips to his thighs, and Julian tenses. The next moment he’s being lifted into the air, trying not to shriek as the world spins and a swoop of nausea joins the desire swirling in the pit of his stomach. Is he… being carried? “Oh my God, Garak, I don’t think this is a good idea,” he gasps, clinging on for dear life.</p><p>“Your concern is most… un- un<em>necessary, </em>Doctor,” Garak replies. He sounds more than a little breathless and more than a little distracted. Julian could laugh if he wasn’t so terrified of being dropped right now. He clamps his legs tighter around Garak’s waist and buries his face in bared ridges of his shoulders, shaking with repressed amusement.</p><p>“You’re truly mad, you know that right?” he mumbles. <em>And strong. I certainly couldn’t lift me up like this. </em>But then again, Garak always has an odd, determined practicality about him in the heat of the moment. People can perform astounding acts well beyond their power when that desperate, more undefined consciousness takes over. Julian kisses the flushed, rough scales under his nose, frankly amazed by their uniqueness, the pretty blueish colour that seems to have come about their usual grey.</p><p>“A temporary insanity, I assure you,” Garak says, voice muffled. Julian feels some final latch come unhooked in his heart, spares one arm to turn Garak’s head and meet his mouth with a searing kiss, lost for anything else he could say or do. Garak purrs again, Julian groans, the room has sort of blurred and turned to vague peripheral images. It’s so silly, in a way. Perfect, too. He only has a few moments to think about how annoyed he is that Garak never said anything until now before the arousal burns right to the front of his brain, insistent and directionless as wildfire.</p><p>There’s a firm surface behind his back – a wall, maybe – and Garak is pressing closer with his tongue in Julian’s mouth, a demanding force. He hardly has time to breathe let alone think in the onslaught, frantic in his efforts to return every advance with equal heat. He’s letting this go too far. The evidence of that is pretty obvious, at this point. He can’t help but wish humans could’ve developed better, or at least more subtle, reproductive habits by now. Garak shifts on his feet and Julian swallows another moan at the friction, not caring how messy his kisses are or how tightly he holds on in his need to close whatever small amount of distance still exists between them. Being with Garak is… oh, it’s <em>everything. </em>But of course it is.</p><p>“Still nothing to say for yourself, Doctor?” Garak asks, running his thumb along Julian’s bottom lip as they pause to breathe.</p><p>“Nope,” he replies. “No, not… not at all.” <em>Liar. </em></p><p>He meets Garak’s eyes. The frail distraction at the front of his mind begins to fray at the seams.</p><p>“Garak.”</p><p>“Yes, Doctor?” Garak murmurs, suddenly cornered. His fingers trace Julian’s cheekbone, so gentle and precise. It would be enough to break his heart, if he didn’t already feel that the events of the last few minutes have torn it to pieces in the most undeniably beautiful way.</p><p>The mood seems to have changed. Julian finds himself without words again, tucking his nose back into Garak’s shoulder and screwing his eyes shut as he searches for honesty. He doesn’t want to cry. He can’t, not in front of Garak. A soft breath against his cheek and the wall behind him is gone, and he clutches on desperately – not afraid of falling, but afraid of letting go. He hears a <em>whoosh </em>and some of the brightness seems to fade. With more grace than he was expecting, Garak lays him down on the comfort of a bed, among pillows and blankets that smell like the faint perfume of Deep Space 9’s tailor shop. Julian cracks open an eye, stinging from tears. Garak hovers above him, hair askew, emotion impossible to discern. The bedroom is dark and warm, almost reassuring.</p><p>“My dear,” Garak says quietly, “if there’s something you wish to say…”</p><p>“I… I’m afraid of hurting you,” he whispers.</p><p>“Perhaps I ought to explain, then. Your… <em>emotions, </em>my dear Julian-” He shivers at the sound of his given name on Garak’s tongue, wondering how he waited so long to hear it spoken like that, with so much… so much sentimentality. “Are of <em>far </em>greater concern to me than my own. Whatever you required, I would give to you, to the best of my <em>meagre </em>capabilities.”</p><p>Julian laughs softly, almost tearfully, and rises from the bed to kiss Garak again. <em>I didn’t think it would be like this. </em>Who knows what he thought it would be like, but nothing this painful. Nothing this exquisite. “I’m sick, Garak,” he says. “Very sick. And I… I could pull through, or I could not.”</p><p>Garak makes no immediate response, though his fingers pause where they are at the edge of his collar, hovering halfway between skin and the purple-grey of his uniform undershirt.</p><p>“It’s why I’ve been… how I have been, the past few days,” he continues, voice tremulous and close to cracking on every second syllable. “I didn’t know how to tell anybody, I… I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“Apologies are unnecessary,” Garak tells him. He wipes away the single tear trekking its way down Julian’s face. “And if it is any consolation, I never suspected. It seems you have learned something of subterfuge over the years, after all.”</p><p>Julian laughs again, moving aside on the bed – a double bed, because of course Garak has a double bed – and gently pulling Garak down after him. He feels so tired all of a sudden, sinking into the miserable comfort and warmth of its over-the-top levels of padding and accessory. He supposes Garak gets cold in the night. “My treatment starts tomorrow,” he says. “That’s why I came to tell you. I didn’t expect… this. Not that I don’t very much appreciate it,” he adds quickly. If Garak decides he’s too frail for kisses now, he’s going to be quite annoyed.</p><p>“Ah, I see.” Garak lowers himself down beside Julian with a strange sort of strained delight on his face, as though torn between two emotional truths. “It may be best to postpone this <em>particular </em>experiment until after your recovery, then.”</p><p><em>“If </em>I recover,” Julian corrects. “Though… yes. As much as it <em>tears</em> me up inside to do so.” He moves, and something crackles in his pocket. <em>Strange. </em>He reaches down and withdraws a slip of worn, crinkled paper, all the while feeling Garak’s sharp gaze making pinpricks in his skin. The paper unfolds in his hands, baring its message to the weak light of the room.</p><p>“Oh,” he says. “You wrote this.”</p><p>“Yes. I take it you have not deigned to read it until now.”</p><p>“No, I…” He smiles. “I see why you were upset, thinking I’d read this and got back with Leeta right after. For a Cardassian, this is practically Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. Why didn’t you just wake me up and tell me?”</p><p>Garak blinks slowly, sliding an arm around Julian’s middle in a protective kind of way that sends a tremor up his spine. “Hm. A small failing I hope you can forgive.”</p><p>“Well, that depends.”</p><p>“On what, precisely?”</p><p>Julian refolds the note and places it back in his pocket. “Oh, on <em>things, </em>you know. I <em>am</em> on the hunt for reasons to live past the end of this week, after all.”</p><p>“Perhaps I could provide you with some.”</p><p>“I’d like to see you try.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Quark’s is quiet tonight. It’s rather like the tide coming in and out on the coast – like clockwork, almost predictable, but with reasons mysterious and lost somewhere up in the stars. Quark always complains, of course, laments how terrible it is for business to even have a single hour without a fully packed house in the evenings, but everybody knows he’d die without it. He’s a people person, as he likes to say. He needs the conversation. It’s why Julian isn’t surprised to see him leaning over the bar to bicker vehemently with Odo as they enter, overjoyed with any chance to infuriate. His subordinates take care of the business, but even they move at the lethargic pace of water slowly sliding back down the sand to the ocean, without worry.</p><p>“Evening, Quark,” Miles calls out on their joint behalf, making for the counter. He’s taken to doing a lot of things for them, for Julian – making sure doors are open, carrying things here and there, bringing him all the latest reports and always keeping one eye peeled in case Julian looks like he’s going to fall. It’s quite sweet. He bears it all with a gruff sort of determination. He and Kira have found some kinship in that, at least. She’s been to his sickbed in the Infirmary twice now to talk as if nothing’s changed, often about the baby but usually about the station, or about Bajor. It’s strange to think of the first time they spoke, in that same Infirmary but with far from the same minds. He can feel it drawing him towards her philosophy of faith day by day. Things do happen for a reason, even if one has to make that reason for themselves. He’s not quite sure what this near and quite possibly still death scenario is in aid of in his life, but he’s beginning to feel he’ll work it out in time.</p><p>For now, he just has to focus on making one foot go forward after the other, carrying him on through the drawn-out days. He no longer feels like death. He feels like life, in the rawest, most agonising sense of the word.</p><p>His surgery is scheduled for 1400 hours tomorrow. He’s on a kick of mild optimism at the moment. If he wasn’t, he’s pretty sure Miles would argue it into him.</p><p>“Ah, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” Quark greets as they reach the bar and Miles helps him onto a stool – again, not very necessary, but it’s nice to know someone cares. “My, Doctor, you look…”</p><p>“Corpse-like?” he suggests, smiling.</p><p>“I was going to say colourful,” Quark mutters with a gesture towards his shirt, which is admittedly a rather flamboyant short-sleeve button-up of purple and blue dinosaur print. Jadzia bought it for him for his last birthday. He realised he’d never had the chance to wear it before. “That said,” Quark continues, “you do look like you’ve been trampled by an Algorian mammoth.”</p><p>Further down the bar, Odo huffs with disapproval.</p><p>“I’m dying, Quark,” he explains.</p><p>Quark stares for a moment, gaze flickering to Odo with the glare of betrayal of only just learning of this lucrative tragedy now. Julian’s still laughing on the inside at the story Jadzia told him of Quark and Odo’s little incident. Clearly, the ordeal has truly brought them together.</p><p>“That’s a real shame, Doctor, I <em>always</em> liked you,” Quark says. A pause, and then, “made any funeral arrangements yet?”</p><p>Odo harrumphs again, just louder this time. “You could let the doctor have <em>two minutes </em>to rest before bombarding him with your financial wiles,” he grumbles.</p><p>“Oh, don’t worry, Odo,” Julian says. “Quark trying to profit off one of your personal tragedies is a rite of passage.”</p><p>“Besides,” Miles interjects, “he’s <em>not </em>dying. Not yet.”</p><p>Quark sighs, picking up a towel to start drying glasses. “See, now I’m getting confused. Am I arranging an in-memoriam service or not?”</p><p>“We’ll have to wait and see,” Julian answers. “My surgery is tomorrow, after that I’ll either be making a slow but fair recovery, or I’ll be kicking the bucket for good. No offence,” he adds in Odo’s direction.</p><p>“Why should I be offended?”</p><p>“Well, you uh- used to sleep in a bucket, didn’t you?” he tries, wincing slightly.</p><p>Odo looks very much like he might let loose one of his cutting remarks if he didn’t know Julian was currently suffering from a terminal illness.</p><p>“You’re not here for one last night of Quark’s bar's unmatchable service then, are you?” Quark asks hopefully.</p><p>“I’m afraid not,” he answers. “Well, not quite. I’m here for the holosuite session – it’s under Jadzia’s name, I think. The Chief was just making sure I made it here in one piece.”</p><p>“You sure you’re up for this, Julian?” Miles says, a frown tugging at the lines of his face.</p><p>“Yes, I’d prefer <em>not </em>to have people dropping dead in my holosuites, you know,” Quark says. “It’s a nightmare. The last time-” He breaks off suddenly, looking back down to his half-dried stack of decorative glasses.</p><p>“What <em>did </em>happen the last time?” Odo questions. <em>“I </em>don’t remember ever receiving a report of a death in one of your holosuites.”</p><p>“Forget I said anything. Doctor, if you’ll simply make your confirmation of your program on this PADD, add the time slot and method of payment, plus a waiver stating <em>any </em>harm suffered tonight is not the responsibility of Quark’s Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade, you can be on your way upstairs.”</p><p>Julian chuckles and leans over to take the device, feeling the faint chill the air leaves on his bare arms and legs. He never wears short sleeves or shorts around the station usually, but today it seems activity appropriate. “Oh, I’ll be <em>fine,</em> Miles, don’t worry,” he insists, seeing the Chief’s still-torn expression. “If I do make it past tomorrow, I’m going to be spending <em>God</em> knows how long stuck in my quarters recovering. Besides, Garak will be here in a bit to look after me. You’re going to be late for your meeting if you hang around here much longer.”</p><p>“Fine. Jus’ call me if you need anything, all right?”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>He has been in Quark’s holosuites for a lot of reasons over the years – <em>Julian Bashir, Secret Agent, </em>visualised scientific experiments, the occasional party that spilled out from the bar into the rooms beyond. He’s never really been in them to just… be. For a long time, he struggled to understand why Jadzia liked those simple programs so much, how she and Kira could spend hours upon hours just existing inside an imaginary world, with no particular purpose. The process of dying does change a person, though maybe he was already changing before that. He used to be so afraid of sitting still, like the whole galaxy might collapse in on itself if he didn’t keep moving or speaking or at least <em>thinking </em>about doing either one of those things.</p><p>He rushed through parts of his life. He missed things – missed obvious truths and important details, missed chances. There’s no point in trying to cram a lifetime plus Garak into one two-hour holosuite session, just in case the surgery goes wrong and he can’t be saved after all.</p><p>“Quark?”</p><p>“Yes, Doctor?</p><p>“If I do die,” he says, paused halfway up the precarious stairs, “you’re welcome to my funeral. But if I live, I promise you can throw a party all the same. You know, a sort of, <em>congratulations of not dying </em>kind of do. If you’d like it.”</p><p>Quark grins. “I’d be overjoyed. I’ll get the betting on your chances started in the meantime.”</p><p>Odo harrumphs his disapproval. Julian only smiles. “I’m glad to hear it.”</p><p>He tastes salt and distant shores as he steps through the holosuite door and leaves Deep Space 9 behind, amazed by the pure… the pure realism, of this place, devoid of the modern taints that strip away its believability. This is no Kowloon apartment, no Paris bar. No lakes of Camelot or reproduced gallery with a strange tinge of the imitation to its works. He has never felt so suddenly and irrecoverably present before.</p><p>He’s made his peace with the stars and planets and space stations – the distant, not quite immediate aspects of his existence.</p><p>The wind coming up off the ocean is sweet and cool and reminds him of somewhere he knows but has never been.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“You’re late.”</p><p>“I apologise, my dear, I had rather a significant crisis of fashion.”</p><p>Julian glances up, taking in the rather sombre but finely crafted black and grey garments, adorned with silver stitching. “You look fine. Better than fine,” he adds. “As always. A wardrobe disaster isn’t like you, though.”</p><p>“Hm, well,” Garak sighs. “These are unprecedented times.”</p><p>He stands slowly, brushing smudges of red dirt off his clothes. Garak’s hand finds his arm, steadies him as his eyes meet the sun and are blinded momentarily in the late-afternoon glow. The foliage beyond the path is a low covering of thicket – a natural barrier between the wilderness and the road carved through it by thousands of footsteps, preserved in all its mystery. He’s not so sure why he chose this place, in the end. He only ever visited it once in the real world, and it wasn’t a happy time. It was a barely-clinging-on kind of time, a how-can-I-survive-this era of his otherwise fortunate life. Perhaps that’s what drew him to it now.</p><p>“Come on,” he says quietly. “Let’s go.” It’s amazing what they can do with holosuites these days. The dunes stretch out before him with all the same wonder they had on Earth, almost endless.</p><p>“And where exactly <em>are</em> we going?” Garak asks, glancing around with curiosity. Julian has never brought him here, never had a reason to before now.</p><p>He grips Garak’s arm a little tighter and leads him on down the path, where brick-coloured dust melts away into white sands like blood fading into water. “For a walk,” he answers. “Be patient, you’ll see in a moment.”</p><p>It’s a struggle to make it over the line of dunes, even with the holosuite adjusted to make the endpoint arrive sooner and the hills not quite so steep. <em>Easier once we make it to the top. It’s all downhill from there. </em>He smiles when Garak stumbles attempting to plod across the sand. He took his shoes off when he arrived for a reason – the ground may be hot, but it’s much easier to traverse in bare feet. That probably pushes a <em>bit </em>past the realms of unprofessional for Garak, though, even if somehow making out with him in the Infirmary while the nurse is getting something from the supply closet isn’t.</p><p>God, he does have to end up living, only just for that. The holonovels were wrong. There’s nothing sexy about dying young and in love.</p><p>They reach the top at the same time. It’s so much of what he remembers. There are fewer clouds, the tide is further out, but the rest is just the same. A huge expanse of pale sand stretches down to the place where it meets the water, waves that reflect the slowly setting sun and pale sky above on their blue-green surface. Looking out to the horizon, one could easily believe that the ocean went on forever. Of course, on the real Earth, the next thing beyond it would be the island of Madagascar, some eight thousand kilometres away. After that the continent of Africa. Here, in this holosuite, it’s all nothing at all.</p><p>Still trying to catch his breath and ignore the mounting pain, he glances at Garak, who stands with his eyes fixed on the distant sun. Its rays seem to set the water on fire, lighting up the wisps of cloud in the sky with shades of purple and red and gold. He wonders whether they have places like this on Cardassia. Whether Garak has ever seen an ocean so untainted and wide. Garak catches him staring, and he averts his gaze quickly as the heat rises to his cheeks.</p><p>“Well, my dear doctor – most impressive. <em>Now </em>may I ask where we are?”</p><p>“The town back down the road is Broome,” he explains, stepping off the crest of the dune. “Though the Yawuru people call it Rubibi. This beach is a sacred place for them.”</p><p>“And to you?”</p><p>The hushed roar of the ocean thrums in his ears, a constant reminder. “I’ve only been here once,” he admits. “I chose it because I recognised the name on the list, that’s all, really. Thought it might be a nice place to spend my last night.”</p><p>“I take it you have your reservations about this surgery,” Garak says.</p><p>“Oh, I’m… cautiously optimistic.” He offers Garak a small grin, forgetting his efforts to be forlorn and quiet as might best fit the unfortunate circumstances. “But I think somebody told me once about the need to face reality.”</p><p>“And assertion in which I was sorely mistaken, as it turned out. You would do well to remember, <em>Julian, </em>that however unrealistic your <em>noble</em> pretensions, they have saved lives.”</p><p><em>Including yours. </em>“All right, you win. Race me to the water’s edge?”</p><p>Garak huffs like the mere concept is far below him. “Would the dear Nurse Jabara approve, I wonder.”</p><p>“Suit yourself.” Julian is <em>far</em> too close to death to pass up this opportunity, as unwise as it may be. Dropping his shoes there in the sand, he makes a break for the shoreline, running as fast as his legs will carry him. Garak calls something after him. The words themselves are lost in the wind, leaving only an impression of fond disapproval. By the time he’s reached the water’s edge, he’s built up way too much energy to avoid getting wet if he tried. It doesn’t matter. Holoprogram water can’t exactly ruin your clothes. The lapping waves are cool and flick droplets up to glisten on his skin. Up close, the ocean is perfectly clear, every detail so precise it would be so easy for him to imagine this <em>was </em>all real, not a recreation. He crouches down in the white-tinged swirl, running his fingers through ripples and wondering.</p><p>He could probably use another hypo just now. Oh well.</p><p>His companion waits for him much further up the beach, on the final bank of sand still soft and white before it becomes damp. Julian watches from afar for a moment, still kneeling down in the surf. The sky behind Garak has gone to twilight, a deep purple-blue against which he stands, lit by the sunset in a way that gives him an almost ethereal appearance. He looks sort of small and alone, from a distance. Like something is missing. <em>Or am I missing him?</em></p><p>From a detached view, it is difficult to tell where his life ends and Garak’s begins. He supposes that’s the nature of sentient beings, to find their lives intertwined with those of the people around them, thread woven so carefully that removing one would unravel the entire picture. Death is not a cut thread. It simply means that piece of string is reaffixed, tied in with the journey of another. A memory, but no less real. He makes his way back up the sand.</p><p>Garak is staring at the waves like they might swallow him whole.</p><p>“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the ocean?” Julian asks teasingly, taking a seat on the bank. The sunset is truly glorious. Julian has seen countless suns – close and from afar – but none ever seem to compare with the one he grew up with. The sun destined to one day destroy the planets that feed off its energy now, children raised through fire and ice for eventual consumption.</p><p>“Hardly,” Garak replies. “Though whyanyone would wish to go swimming in it for <em>amusement </em>escapes me. Now, to avoid the retribution of Chief O’Brien, I must ask how you’re feeling.”</p><p>Julian shrugs, too distracted by wondering whether the sting in his eyes is from sand in the wind or something else. “The universe is incredible, isn’t it?” he says. “When you think about how there are billions, <em>trillions </em>of places just as amazing as this one out there, just waiting to be witnessed by someone.”</p><p>“Unfortunate,” Garak remarks, “that no individual is capable of visiting them all in a single lifetime.”</p><p>“I think you’d get bored if you were seeing a new wonder every day,” he replies. “Things wouldn’t seem so… extraordinary anymore. Take Deep Space 9, for example. We’re used to the wormhole now, after all these years. But do you remember the first time you ever saw it properly? I do. We – Jadzia and Kira and Odo and I – we were in the runabout trying to stop the Cardassians when it appeared out of nowhere in that just… sort of swirling flash of blue, the way it does.” He sighs. “That day changed everything.”</p><p>Garak tilts his head, baring his cheek to the sun. “Indeed it did. For better or worse though, perhaps remains to be seen.”</p><p>“I hope for better.”</p><p>“Oh, Doctor, we all <em>hope </em>for better.”</p><p>A seabird flies overhead, catching air currents to sail along the line of the water with an almost ghostlike grace to its passage. Julian watches it go, watches it skim the waves with its dark wings stretched wide. “I guess we do,” he says. “We have to believe in something.” Quark has to believe in gold-pressed latinum, Kira has to believe in the will of the Prophets. Garak has to believe that one day, he will be able to set foot on Cardassian again. <em>I have to believe I will survive this. </em>He looks at Garak, standing upon the white sand with the breeze ruffling his neat hair, harmonious with the landscape around him. The light of the setting sun seems to cast a glow upon his scaled skin, revealing colours Julian doesn’t think he’s ever seen. That same blueish hue, faint and reminding him of the navy-grey of waters far out to sea. “Come sit with me for a moment,” he requests, patting the ground.</p><p>Garak complies, lowering himself down onto the sand, close enough so that their shoulders touch. It’s not enough. It never could be, even if they had all the time in the world.</p><p>“You told me once you had relationships in the past,” he begins softly. <em>“Dalliances, </em>I think you called them. I was wondering whether I fall into the category of ill-advised or not.”</p><p>“Of course not,” Garak replies, indignant.</p><p>“But I could die. I could die <em>tomorrow. </em>Wouldn’t it be better if you’d never come up to me in the replimat that day? By becoming, well, <em>involved</em>…”</p><p>“The involvement, perhaps, was an active decision on my part,” Garak says. <em>“You, </em>my dear,were not.”</p><p>Julian stares, wishing Garak would look his way again so he could be sure. Guilt is a terrible emotion. It twists even common kindness into the most awful level of sin. Maybe Garak can read minds. Or maybe he just knows Julian too well. His blue eyes are unguarded when they find Julian’s own. Apprehensive beneath their detached humour and well-tamed charm, close to honesty.</p><p>“Believe me, Doctor, I find it as <em>strange </em>as you. But as the case may be, this is one of the few conceivable occasions on which a deviation from pure, unadulterated lies is warranted. Recommended, even.”</p><p>He laughs, leaning into Garak’s domestic, languid touch as though it’s the essence of life. “Is that how they said <em>I love you </em>in the Obsidian Order?”</p><p>“Mm, a comparison could be made.”</p><p>“Well, I think it’s sweet,” he declares, reaching up to run his fingers along the ridge just above Garak’s left eye. “And I’m pretty sure I love you too, for the record.”</p><p>Garak smiles – a delighted sort of expression, sincerity laid out under its eclecticism. “Only a hypothesis, is it?”</p><p>“I <em>am </em>a man of science,” he says. “Everything’s just a theory, in the end. The point of the exercise is to gather enough evidence so you can believe a thing even without any kind of God-given proof.”</p><p>“And I am to understand you find yourself… lacking, in that evidence?”</p><p>“A bit more couldn’t hurt.” He doesn’t wait – can’t bring himself to, even for the sake of continuing the game – and leans in to kiss Garak gently under the warm rays of their artificial sun, hearing the distant cry of birds on the wind. It’s no less wonderous that he can do this now than it was the first time it happened, though the touch is more thoughtful here, more considered. There’s nothing more he would want. Garak is steady and certain under his hands, his mouth tasting of nothing much at all in a familiar, intentional sense. He could die like this. He won’t, but he could. He could die on the verge of true happiness.</p><p>“Do you think it’s worth talking about?” he murmurs, pulling away to rest his forehead against Garak’s so their noses almost manage to touch. His eyes are closed, though the ceaseless light of the sunset still cuts through.</p><p>“And what would <em>it </em>be, my dear?”</p><p>He sighs. “You know what. Is it worth talking about?”</p><p>“Do you wish to discuss it?” Garak asks simply.</p><p>“I… no, I don’t think so.”</p><p>“Then I see no reason to indulge our anxieties.”</p><p>“All right.” He takes a deep breath, and smiles. “I’m okay with that.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Personal log, Julian Bashir.</em>
</p><p><em>I’m always lost for what to say here. People’s lives are boring. I remember I had a friend in school who used to journal every day – used to write pages of it, and I always wondered how. I mean, what do you have to talk about? Lectures? Spending three hours in the study hall doing nothing? Going for a walk in the gardens and seeing the exact same trees and bushes that you did yesterday? I could never work out how to write about more than my, well,</em> feelings, <em>and that's not something I think I'm going to be keen on rereading anytime soon. So I</em><em> don’t have many personal logs, except for, you know, missions and the like. Besides, who has the time to sit around for half an hour, an hour every day, talking to a computer?</em></p><p>
  <em>Well, I do. But most people don’t. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I was thinking about the astronauts again today. I think it’s that sort of thing where, well, you’re out there. In space. And you can’t just wish yourself home or wherever you’d want to be if you had your way. You don’t have a choice. They didn’t have a choice, not after they decided to keep going, travelling so far into space nobody could reach them anymore. So you can either just sit their regretting it all and being afraid, or you can sort of… keep going, I suppose, because there’s nothing else to do. I’m not explaining this very well. What I’m trying to say is, it comes down to living or dying, in the end. In some sense of the words.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m still not sure where I’m going to end up, yet. But I know what I want to choose, if I get the chance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Er, that’s all. For now – I’ll be back if I’m… you know, still breathing in twenty-six hours. Awkward if I’m not. Anyway.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Computer, end log.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“How was today?”</p><p>“Oh, mostly like yesterday.” <em>And the day before that, and the day before that. All of several weeks before that, even.</em></p><p>Sometimes he used to abhor monotony, sometimes he used to long for it. He’s fairly sure with the option he’s settled on now. <em>Abhorrence. All the way to the bloody Gamma Quadrant and back. </em></p><p>“Did you read those extra reports I sent you? The details of Benjamin’s visions?”</p><p>“Yes, I read them. I wish I could’ve been there to help, maybe even to understand what exactly was going on in his brain. Someone could write a brilliant paper on that.”</p><p>Jadzia smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t know how much Benjamin would appreciate that. He’s been through it the past few days – losing the visions was hard on him.”</p><p>“Hm, I suppose so. We all seem to be going through it at the moment, don’t we?”</p><p>“And what are <em>you</em> going through, Julie?” Leeta interrupts, settling down on the edge of his bed. “You seem more cheerful than you were not so long ago.”</p><p>“Leeta,” he says seriously, “I am going <em>insane. </em>If I have to stare at these same plain, empty walls for another day, I’m going to fly off the handle.” He’s beginning to regret keeping such a focus on maintaining clean quarters since his arrival on Deep Space 9, actively battling his sporadic nature to make a good impression. At least the mess would be something to look at. Instead, he’s trapped in this hellhole of muted blues and blacks and greys, suffering through the recordings of Klingon opera that Worf brought him to revitalise his warrior’s spirit or something.</p><p>“Maybe you should put some pictures up,” Jadzia suggests.</p><p>“I barely made it to the replicator and back today,” he points out.</p><p>Leeta gasps, reaching for his hand and clutching it in a painful squeeze. “You did? Oh, Julian, that’s- that’s-”</p><p>“About ten metres?”</p><p><em>“Really </em>good progress,” Jadzia says.</p><p>“Well, I essentially collapsed and couldn’t move for two hours afterwards, so I’m not sure how much of a success it was.”</p><p>“Like I said, progress.”</p><p>Julian lets his head fall back against the pillow with a sigh, too tired to keep it up any longer. If only he could just sleep for ninety percent of the day, like Jadzia’s aging pet tribble seems to. “I know, I know. Except now I’m not sure how I’m going to make it into the shower tonight, and that’s usually pretty much the highlight of my day. Apart from all my uh, charming visitors, of course,” he adds, nodding at Jadzia and Leeta. “How’s Kira, by the way?”</p><p>“She’s doing well,” Jadzia replies. “She wanted to come today, but she needs the rest at the moment. It won’t be long now.”</p><p>The door to Julian’s quarters opens with a soft <em>whoosh </em>and Garak glides through into the bedroom, distracted by the contents of a PADD. He smiles amiably when he sees their guests, slipping back on the mask he tends to drop in Julian’s company.</p><p>“Good afternoon Commander, Leeta,” he greets. “What a lovely surprise to find you here.”</p><p>“I’ve just been telling them about my achievement,” Julian explains, doing his best to sound self-deprecating instead of proud. Walking to the replicator with a pause to rest on the way there is nothing to brag about. <em>A week ago, doing that might’ve just about killed me, though. </em>Things are getting better. Just slowly.</p><p>“Yes, quite an admirable feat,” Garak agrees. He sets his PADD aside and takes a seat in his usual armchair. “I received an excited communication concerning the matter in the middle of hemming a <em>particularly </em>intricate skirt. I’m afraid that unfortunate piece of Tholian silk may never recover.”</p><p>Julian feels heat rise to his cheeks and averts quickly his eyes. “Sorry about that.”</p><p>Jadzia does a poor job of hiding her smile. “Well, we’ll get going now – I’ve got to check on Nerys, and Leeta’s shift starts soon. Is there anything I can get for you in the meantime, Julian?”</p><p>“A body capable of making it halfway down the corridor might be nice,” he mutters. “Though er… some of Quark’s latest gossip could probably suffice for now.”</p><p>“Done.”</p><p>Leeta leans in and gives him her typical kiss on the cheek before she goes, momentarily scooping Kukalaka up in her arms to kiss him too. They’ve spent quite a bit of time talking over the past few days. She tells him about Bajor, the valley city she lived in before coming to DS9. He tells her a bit about Earth and all the wonders of the world he’s going to see one day when he can make it as far as a docking ring again.</p><p>He did survive. Not without some sort of cost, of course. He knows Naj is right when she says it’s only a matter of time – he’ll be up and about again within weeks to months, with any luck, and after that, his life might be mostly like it was. Nothing could ever be the <em>same, </em>though. His body is still only just hanging on by a thread. Thank the stars for modern medicine and all that.</p><p>Tucking Kukalaka back beneath his arm, he watches Jadzia and Leeta go with some remorse. Still, some of the forced precision in Garak’s demeanour drops as the door closes behind them, and that’s a reward in itself. He watches Garak stretch out in the chair, huffing slightly as he picks his PADD back up and returns to his reading.</p><p>“How’s my replacement doing?” he asks to break the quiet, even though he doesn’t really want to find out the answer.</p><p>“Doctor Corwin has hardly<em> replaced</em> you, my dear, as I believe you know full well. She is merely a temporary fill until the time at which you are feeling well enough to return to your duties.”</p><p><em>If that time ever comes. </em>“Yes, well, it’s just hard being trapped in here with nothing <em>productive</em> to do. I feel like you’re all out there fighting a war or something, and I’m stuck in bed reading other people’s reports.”</p><p>Garak chuckles. “A war against poor taste in fashion, perhaps.”</p><p>The silence persists for a long time.</p><p>Coming to terms with being alive is almost as difficult as coming to terms with the prospect of being dead, he’s found. Maybe if he’d made some instantaneous miracle recovery, it could’ve been different. He could’ve just shoved <em>that time I almost died, no, the one with the degenerative disease, not the other one </em>down into a little box and buried it somewhere hidden and distant in the shadowed halls of Deep Space 9, never to be brought up again. It could’ve been like every other time. <em>Oh, we survived. No consequences, no need to dwell on it. </em>But no, not for him. At least not for a while.</p><p>“Have you ever heard of Meezan IV, Garak?”</p><p>A heavy sigh. “That was the location of your conference on… on…”</p><p>“Burn treatment,” he finishes, picking a crumb from the fur behind Kukalaka’s right ear. “You wouldn’t believe how long I worked on that bloody Dominion weapon burn report, and I wasn’t even well enough to call in.”</p><p>“There will be other burn conferences, I’m sure.”</p><p>“That’s not the point.”</p><p>Garak meets his eye. “My dear doctor, do enlighten me.”</p><p>It’s difficult to say aloud. His instincts tell him to just drop it, given beyond some highly unethical meddling using the Orb of Time there’s nothing anyone in the galaxy can do about, but Garak watches him with such a sharp discernment that the words are drawn out anyway, as everything is, with him. <em>Poison from a wound, remember? </em>“I just wish everything could be like it was before,” he admits. “And I know it can’t be, I’m not delusional. But I’m so <em>sick </em>of being- being <em>useless </em>here. I’m sick of having to make you and Jadzia and Leeta and the nurses do everything for me when you should, you know, be out <em>there-” </em>He gestures vaguely in the direction of the small porthole window, to the distant stars beyond. He can remember the infinitesimal feeling of looking through a runabout viewscreen at those stars and saying <em>I wish I could visit every one. </em>“You should be out there,” he repeats, “saving the Alpha Quadrant. And so should I.”</p><p>Garak stands and crosses the few metres to the bed. Julian always wonders what it’s like inside that mind of his. Everything about it is so… undefinable. A word in a forgotten language he is still learning how to speak.</p><p>“If you were Cardassian, Doctor,” Garak says. “I might be <em>tempted </em>to agree with you. But fortunately for you, you are not. Your right to exist does not hinge of some notion of <em>usefulness, </em>as tiresome as it may be to suffer such a lack of power.” He looks down from above with his impossible smile, one single strand of hair askew, and Julian curses him silly weak arms for being too exhausted for him to reach up and set it right. “However, perhaps one <em>could </em>contact the Dominion and see if they would consider delaying any plans of invasion until you have recovered. They may decide to be accommodating, for a change.”</p><p>“Very funny, Garak,” he replies, rolling his eyes. Garak’s smile grows, and for a moment he finds himself to overcome with the gentle intensity of the exchange that if his blood sugar was any lower it might’ve made him cry. “Maybe I don’t wish <em>everything </em>was quite how it was before.”</p><p>“A resolution to the matter that didn’t involve yet another near-death scenario might have been preferable.”</p><p>“I know,” he says. “That’s why I’m still annoyed at you for not telling me sooner. It would’ve saved a lot of bother.”</p><p>“I could say much the same.”</p><p>“I <em>told </em>you, I only figured it out myself that night I got drunk, I didn’t have the faintest idea-” He breaks off when Garak’s hand comes down to cup his cheek, ending his channel of thought mid-sentence. He’s always amazed by the duality of Garak’s touch. It can be strong and demanding like people imagine the inner-romantic of Elim Garak to be, but it can be just as delicate, just as precise. The bold colours of a new dress and the fineness of the stitching that holds it together.</p><p>Julian tilts his chin and allows Garak the room to lean in and kiss him – gently, the sort of gesture that’s so quickly became woven in with his life he thinks it could kill him to go without it now. Some might call that a first-glance infatuation, a risk. If it were anyone but Garak, he would be afraid that was the truth.</p><p>“I feel better today,” he murmurs. “Better than I did yesterday.” Garak simply bows his head and kisses him again.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Computer, this is Julian Bashir. I want you to erase personal logs-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Actually no, wait, never mind. No, uh… computer, archive all personal logs. Start log numbering system over from zero, beginning today, which is… oh, uh- stardate 50403.7. [Clears throat, breathes deeply, waits for the moment to arrive.]</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Okay, good. Well, uh…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Personal log, Julian Bashir. Not much happened today – I was asleep for most of the morning, accidentally, of course. Garak dropped by at lunchtime to check on me, like usual. You won’t believe what he had to say about Shakespeare’s collection of sonnets. I was honestly shocked. Something about sentimental nonsense and ridiculous hyperbole. As if the works of the great poet Nassak Dal aren’t the exact same thing! He’s genuinely impossible. Anyway, I told him-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Oh, never mind, I think he’s here now. I’ll finish this later.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>End personal log. </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, darls, as always! This was something definitely beyond my usual comfort zone with fic, and I'm proud of how it came out. I appreciate all the support and I hope you enjoyed it!</p><p>also p.s. but yes, I saved Julian from Internment Camp 371 - there's only so much I can really bear to put that man through. r.i.p. the burn conference on Meezan IV but I'm different.</p><p>p.p.s. what did garak's note for julian say? I haven't the foggiest. I'll leave that up to you to decide for yourselves :)</p><p>-- cami xx</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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